


a universe waiting to happen

by strangehunger



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora is bad with kids, Because references to Shadow Weaver, Best Friends Squad Road Trip, Canon Compliant, Children, Established Relationship, F/F, Five Times Plus One, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, It’s all quite cute, Kid Fic, Kids love Catra, Not JUST them as parents but them with children in general, Parenthood, Post-Canon, Vulnerability, intergalactic travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:14:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26453974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangehunger/pseuds/strangehunger
Summary: “You’re going to owe me a drink,” Catra says. Her movements are awkward as she repositions the baby — but she’s sogentle. She has retracted her claws, but she still gingerly cups the back of the baby’s head as if scared she might somehow harm him. “Where did you even get this?”Adora takes another drink. “The mom just, like, handed him to me and ran off.”“Weird,” Catra says, and then — as if on instinct — she starts doing this weird bouncing thing, the baby’s soft, peach-fuzz still head cupped in her hand. “Who does that?”Adora nods, agreeing vehemently. “Right?”“If I had a baby I wouldn’t just hand it to some stranger,” says Catra with a roll of her eyes.It's such a simple sentiment, yet it makes Adora's world spin.______________Adora and Catra with children through the years, or: Five times kids liked She-Ra more than Adora (and one time one didn’t).
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 74
Kudos: 1198





	a universe waiting to happen

**Author's Note:**

> Good lord this was hard to write?? I have no idea. Please never let me write 5 times plus 1 again because I always end up feeling exhausted. It’s like six one shots in one one-shot. 
> 
> This is my treatise on how I firmly believe Adora would be weird and awkward with kids, but they would LOVE Catra. I am me, so of course it ended up being 20,000 words long with intergalactic travel, worldbuilding, fluff and angst, etc. Please read it. Please like it. I have suffered greatly. 
> 
> A time frame, for anyone who is curious:
> 
> i. About six months after the end of the show.  
> ii. A little over a year after the end of the show.  
> iii. About two years after the end of the show.  
> iv. Three ish years after the show.  
> v. Around five years after show? Or four, doesn’t really matter.  
> +i. About seven or eight years after the show ends. 
> 
> This isn’t directly related to my other five times plus post-canon fic, but the vibes are similar and one of the worlds they visit is the same. I don’t imagine this as one continuous Best Friends Squad Road Trip so much as a series of trips for intergalactic diplomatic reasons and releasing magic reasons. 
> 
> This wasn’t beta read but I won’t know peace until it’s posted, so I’m posting it now. The name is from a quote from “The Stone Gods” by Jeanette Winterson, in which a baby on the way is referred to as “a universe waiting to happen”, probably the only sweet line in the book.
> 
> I'm on twitter as tsunderecatra! I talk about fic and spop and gay things there.

_**i**. _

Adora has a love-hate relationship with parties. 

Maybe she wouldn’t feel so strongly if there weren’t so many of them lately. Not even a month has passed since the defeat of Horde Prime and it seems like Adora can’t even open her bedroom door without being hit with a deluge of invitations, letters, and entreaties from the various kingdoms. Just a few years ago, Adora could never have guessed there was so much cake in the entire universe, and yet somehow everywhere she goes there's _more_. Sometimes, she thinks the dancing is starting to wear her out more than the years of fighting ever had.

 _Just one more,_ Glimmer had told her, running a brush through Adora's hair and folding it into an elegant knot at the nape of her neck. _"Just one more,"_ is something of a mantra these days. Just one more paper to sign, just one more party to attend. After tomorrow, just one more day in Bright Moon before taking off into the stars. 

This final festivity is taking place closer to home. The gates of Bright Moon Castle have been thrown open and the castle decorated for the party of a lifetime. The royal gardens swell with flowers bigger and brighter than any Adora has ever seen before. In the entrance hall, a magnificent ice sculpture of She-Ra glitters under dripping chandeliers. The grounds burst with music and laughter that will soon be a comforting memory in the quiet vacuum of space. 

Adora stands in the cool night wearing a gauzy white and gold jumpsuit and sheepishly entertaining an amassed group of admirers, neck craned so she can glance over their heads in search of her — her _girlfriend._

The thought still makes blood rush to her face, painting her pale cheeks a soft pink and making her head spin. They normally stick together for these affairs. They normally stick together, period. Months have passed since the defeat of Horde Prime and for the first time in years, Adora hasn’t gone a day without seeing Catra. They sit together at breakfast every morning, their chairs scooted so close that Glimmer and Bow joke they might as well share one. They bounce ideas off of one another in the former War Room, the massive table covered in drafts of plans for interstellar missions. At night, she curls into Catra on their shared bed, pressing as close as possible to make up for all of the years she had lay in bed feeling conflicted about how much she missed her warmth. 

It’s stupid, how much she misses Catra when she isn’t by her side, even when she’s just halfway across the grounds. She feels guilty for the thought, knowing that Catra is spending the evening being bounced around by friends who are going to miss her when they’re gone. That’s what all of this revelry is for, after all — one big going away party, a chance to say goodbye before she and her friends take off for distant planets. 

Soft lights dance in the air around them, casting the celebration in a pale glow. Adora had thought them magic, when she first came to Bright Moon. Glimmer had ruined that illusion three years ago by swatting at one of them and laughing at Adora’s shocked face. She has since grown accustomed to the pale, multicolored fireflies that drift through Bright Moon during the summer. She wants to watch them with Catra, not with the group of near strangers who have swarmed her. 

At just the right moment, Catra turns and catches her eye. Her hair has grown a few inches over the last few months — she had slicked it out of her face at first, but Adora had thoroughly destroyed that, haunted by the memory of a different Catra, one with glowing green eyes and sleek hair. Now, she wears it with just one side pinned back. She looks distractingly good in a burgundy suit touched with gold detailing. 

She smiles at Adora, something soft and private, and suddenly it’s just the two of them. 

And then someone goes and ruins it by handing Adora a baby. 

She should be used to this by now. She is intimately acquainted with the shaking hands and kissing babies frenzy people go into when She-Ra so much as sneezes, awkward as it is. Still, she can’t help but be hit by a familiar sense of unease when she looks down at the tiny baby now nestled in her arms.

“Oh, uh,” says Adora fumblingly, because there is something about holding this sleeping, defenseless bundle that is more intimidating to her than a thousand alien warlords could ever be. “I really don’t—”

“Please,” says the mother, a willowy Elberonian woman whose lavender skin matches that of the baby. Her hands cup Adora’s elbows for a moment. “Look at him! My baby! Blessed by the great She-Ra!”

Adora smiles nervously at that. She _isn’t_ She-Ra. She-Ra is eight feet of confident charm and a mass of glowing hair. Adora is awkward arms and stumbling words. She wishes she were She-Ra right now, but her other form remains elusive, even despite everything that happened with the Heart of Etheria. She’s still mastering the “transform-without-the-sword” thing, even now. She-Ra is somewhere inside of her — she _knows_ she is, she had managed to unlock the warrior princess and save the universe, she has transformed countless times since — but it can be hard to channel all of that energy without the sword. She’s getting better, but there’s a learning curve. 

Which means everyone has to make do with Adora. And Adora is _not_ good with babies. 

The mother must see this because she takes pity on Adora, carefully rearranging her arms into a position that is more comfortable for both Adora and the baby. Adora’s gaze ping pongs frantically between the mother and the child, searching for signs of a problem in both of their expressions.

“There,” says the mother quietly. Her voice is soft, and when Adora looks up at her and studies those dainty, pretty Elberonian features, the expression on the woman’s face makes Adora’s heart pound in her chest.

Her enormous eyes are trained down on the baby rather than at Adora. Her gaze is so filled with love that Adora almost forgets to breathe, something foreign stirring within her chest. With a quick, confident gesture, the mother adjusts the sleeping baby’s swaddling under its chin, the movement easy and normal and infinitely tender. 

It takes a moment to name the nauseating emotion coiling within Adora, the feeling so strong she’s almost reeling with it. It’s the same emotion she used to feel when she first met Bow and Glimmer, that sinking feeling that she would never be enough for either of them. It’s the same thing she had felt when she saw Catra and Scorpia together for the first time and then every time after, watching the newfound intimacy playing out between Catra and a new friend. 

It’s _jealousy._

Adora wonders, numbly, if there was ever anyone who looked at her like that. 

She’s still struggling with the force of that thought, with the sudden yearning for a family was taken from, when the mother — whose name Adora doesn’t even know — gives her arms a light squeeze and says, “Wait here. I’m going to get her mother.” 

Adora’s head whips up. “Huh — wait, I don’t think that’s—”

It doesn’t matter what Adora does or does not think; the woman is already taking off, disappearing into the crowd with a speed that could rival Catra trying to escape Netossa’s water bottle. All of a sudden it’s just Adora staring down at someone else’s bundle of joy. 

“Um.” 

It’s not that Adora dislikes babies. They’re cute. They’re just… _weird._

The Horde didn’t often take in infants. There was a nursery, if one could call it that — but Adora and the other cadets in her cohort hadn’t had much interaction with the younger members of the Horde. It was something Adora had tried not to think about, growing up, yet it’s _all_ she can think about as she watches the rise and fall of the infant’s chest. 

Curiously, she runs the fabric of the swaddling beneath her thumb and forefinger, trying to pull it tighter like the baby’s mother had. This child, she hopes, will live a life untouched by war. He won’t be taken from his parents, he won’t be forced to be a soldier. The world is much kinder now. She and her friends have made sure of that. 

Heat pricks at her eyes. She blinks hard — once, twice — to keep the sudden threat of tears at bay. As if sensing her distress, the baby shifts in her arms, wriggling against her for a moment in a way that makes her stomach flutter with affection. Slowly, his eyes drift open — big, blue eyes, deep as the moat that lazily laps around Bright Moon castle. 

Adora smiles. 

The baby shrieks. 

“Oh, no,” Adora says. And then, when it won’t stop crying, “Oh, no, oh, no, oh, _shit.”_

She feels a flash of guilt at the profanity, but she can’t help it. She closes her eyes and, in a moment of panic, tries turning into She-Ra. Babies love She-Ra. _Everyone_ loves She-Ra. 

Nothing happens. They’re both stuck with Adora. 

“There, there,” she says, awkwardly fumbling the baby into a different position, one where she can pat it on the back. She glimpses around desperately — for the mother, for the other mother, for _anyone’s_ mother. For the first time all night, there’s no one clamoring for her attention, even when she so desperately needs the help. 

“Hey, Adora,” comes a familiar voice, “What are you doing to that baby?”

The only thing that keeps Adora from jumping out of her skin in shock is the fact that she doesn’t want the baby to start crying even more. She looks up, throwing a glance to her side and blinks. “Where did you come from?”

“Don’t sound so happy to see me,” says Catra, sidling up next to Adora with a sly smile on her face. She twirls the stem of a cut crystal glass in her hand, filled to the brim with the honeyed pink wine that Glimmer favors. Try as she might, Catra is just as much of a lightweight as Adora. The lack of a pink blush or bright eyes tells Adora that the glass has gone mostly untouched this evening. “What are you doing with that thing?”

“That _thing_ has a name,” says Adora on instinct. 

“Which is?”

Adora blinks. She looks down at the crying baby, which just cries harder, as if this is the greatest betrayal of his young life. It probably is. “I’m not sure.” 

Catra tips her head back and laughs. Normally, Adora would be enchanted by that — by the the line of her throat when she throws her head back, especially with the low cut of her shirt, the sharp points of her fangs on display, the way her eyes crinkle when she laughs — but she’s too busy freaking out because not only is she holding someone else’s baby, but she has apparently broken it. 

“Stop laughing,” Adora hisses. “Look, can you — take it.” 

“What?” Catra’s eyes dart from Adora and the baby and then back again. “I don’t want it.”

“I don’t either!” 

“Perks of being She-Ra, I guess. Free baby.” 

“I’m _not_ She-Ra! I don’t want it! I don’t know what to do with it!” 

Her voice rises, bordering on hysterical. If possible, the baby cries even louder from where it's awkwardly cradled in her arms — and her arms are getting tired, weirdly enough. Adora is strong. She has a workout regimen that would make even her commanders in the Horde weep and the baby isn’t even fifteen pounds. This is a different kind of weight than a sword, though, and creates a different kind of strain, one Adora is unaccustomed to. 

Catra takes pity. With a dramatic sigh she says, “Fine, drama queen. Trade me.” 

They do — Adora awkwardly takes the fluted glass in one hand and pawns the baby off on Catra with the other. She takes the opportunity to knock back a fair portion of the drink while she’s at it. 

“You’re going to owe me a drink,” Catra says. Her movements are awkward as she repositions the baby — but she’s so _gentle._ She has retracted her claws, but she still gingerly cups the back of the baby’s head as if scared she might somehow harm him. “Where did you even get this?”

Adora takes another drink. “The mom just, like, handed him to me and ran off.”

“Weird,” Catra says, and then — as if on instinct — she starts doing this weird bouncing thing, the baby’s soft, peach-fuzz still head cupped in her hand. “Who does that?”

Adora nods, agreeing vehemently. “Right?” 

“If I had a baby I wouldn’t just hand it to some stranger,” says Catra with a roll of her eyes. 

It's such a simple sentiment, yet it makes Adora's world spin.

It’s way too early for that conversation. It’s a thousand _years_ too early for that conversation. This thing, this _relationship_ between her and Catra is at once old and new. Adora barely knows what she’s doing, and despite her smug teasing and smooth flirtations, Catra must feel the same way. Everything is somehow the same yet different between the two of them, both old and new. They lay in bed whispering the way they always used to — but now they do so curled into one another, hands roaming to landscapes Adora never would have dreamed of while growing up. Still, the conversation has never come up. 

Back in the Horde, they had never really talked about the future, either — or at least, not like that. What was the point? The two of them were going to rise to the top of the Horde or they were going to die young. Or both. Adora had never even considered… 

“Hey,” Catra says, voice soft. “Ground control to Adora, are you okay?”

Adora looks up from the patch of grass she had been zoning out at. Her face is flushed, hopefully just enough that she can pass it off as a side effect of the wine. Catra studies her, one eyebrow arched. Her expression is half humor, half concern. And in her arms… 

Somehow, the baby in her arms is asleep. 

Adora gapes openly. 

“Catra — it stopped.”

“I thought it wasn’t an it?”

“You know what I mean,” says Adora. “How did you do that?”

Catra gives a soft hum — but it’s not just a hum, Adora realizes. There’s a familiar vibration in the noise, a soft, rolling sound, and then she realizes Catra is purring. 

An inexplicably sulky part of her feels like that’s _cheating._ Another part of her is jealous, jealous of Catra for actually calming the baby down and of the baby for being asleep. She feels, suddenly, exhausted. She too would like to lie on Catra’s chest and be lulled to sleep by the soft vibration of her purring. 

And yet another part of her is neither. Something about the sight of Catra holding a baby — _Catra,_ who she has never seen hold a baby in her entire life — makes her heart beat faster in her chest. One hand works in mindless circles against the baby’s small, soft back as she carefully bobs it up and down in her arms. The other is firm where it’s hooked under the baby’s body. Solid, careful. Protecting. 

Adora’s vantage point changes. 

Suddenly, she’s looking down on Catra — not from the few inches of height that she has on her, but from a few feet. It takes a moment of disorientation for her to realize what has happened. The only thing that stops her from cursing when she does realize what she’s done is the fact that there’s a baby, like, _right_ there, even if he's too young to understand the words.

Never in her life has she seen someone hold a baby and sport a shit-eating grin at the same time. Catra makes it work. 

“Hey, _She-Ra,”_ she says breezily. “What are you doing up there?”

“I — I don’t — I didn’t mean —”

“You know, I think they did need something to cut that ridiculous cake of Glimmer’s,” Catra said, eyes darting to the monstrous confection across the way, nearly as tall as She-Ra. “That sword of yours just _might_ do the trick.”

“Catra! It’s not funny!”

She-Ra can feel the blush on her face. She's probably a brighter red than one of Scorpia's claws.

This happens sometimes. When she’s scared or nervous or excited or _happy._ That’s probably the worst of them all. She has broken two chairs at the breakfast table because she can't seem to control herself when Catra does something unexpected and sweet, like bringing Adora her coffee or hooking her ankle around hers under the table.

“It’s a little funny,” says Catra. “What, did you drink too—”

“Oh! Dear, look! It’s her.”

She-Ra and Catra turn in sync. The willowy, lavender-skinned woman is back, eyebrows high on her forehead and mouth slack in shock. Her elegant arm is wrapped around the waist of another Elberonian woman, shorter and more solid, her skin and hair a soft orange. The second of the two looks at Adora with wide eyes, familiar eyes — big and sapphire blue, just like the baby’s. 

The taller of the two women pulls on her partner’s — wife’s? — sleeve in excitement. That hand stills, though, when she sees Catra. 

“Oh,” she says, voice going quiet. “You’re…”

She-Ra can feel the change in Catra. Her body stiffens immediately, the soft rumble of her purring dying in an instant. Her ears twitch in agitation, flattening back against her head.

She-Ra hates seeing Catra like this. She wonders if this will ever change — the way others still see Catra. The way Catra sees herself.

“She’s, uh, good with babies,” She-Ra interjects. “Way better than I am.” She has to lean down slightly to do it, but she presses a soothing hand at the low of Catra’s back, just above her tail. She occupies her fingers with soft strokes. “And he was crying…”

“I think he missed you,” says Catra. 

The mother’s eyes soften. She steps forward and sweeps the baby out of Catra’s arms, the movement free of malice. Catra relaxes back against She-Ra hand. She can feel the tension bleeding from Catra’s body, but She-Ra doesn’t halt her soothing ministrations. 

“Did you miss me?” The woman coos, one hand stroking at the downy hair on the baby’s forehead. “Or did you miss Mom?” 

With that, she hands the baby off to her partner. Side by side, the two smile down at the child for a moment. She-Ra shifts closer to Catra, sends her an awkward glance that Catra returns. She feels like they’re intruding on something altogether too personal, too intimate. The little family in front of them seems completely lost in their own world. 

“So, Adora,” says Catra, quietly, and She-Ra welcomes the distraction.

“Hm?”

A sly grin spreads across Catra’s face. “Are you gonna take care of that cake or what?”

 ** _ii_**.

Adora brushes a lock of hair behind her ear. She normally wears it up — albeit lower and looser than she used to, thanks to Catra’s insistence she was going to go bald by the age of thirty — but she had left it down for the day. For once, they’re more tourists than diplomats, and she doesn’t have to worry about appearing professional or trying to fill She-Ra’s larger than life shoes. With her hair loose about her shoulders, eating fried street food off of a stick (some kind of meat, though by now Adora knows better than to ask _what,_ exactly, it is), she could be any girl wandering the market on a warm day. 

“It’s good,” she says. 

Jewelstar laughs. “I told you,” he says. 

“Hey, it’s _blue,”_ Adora says around a mouthful, stick hoisted in the air as a form of proof. “We don’t have a lot of blue food on Etheria.” 

Jewelstar smiles and shakes his head. “Are you getting anything else, or did you want to look around more? I know that smith caught your eye.” 

“Let me check in with Catra,” Adora says. “You don’t want to see her when she’s hungry. She’s almost worse than I am.” 

_“Almost_ sounds about right.”

Adora shoots him a sheepish smile. The day had started with the group of them making their way through the immense market together, though they had started to break off individually throughout the day. Adora had been inclined to stick with Catra, like she always did — but she didn’t exactly share Bow and Catra’s passions for haggling with tech vendors who claimed to know more than Bow _and_ thought they could win an argument with Catra, and the louder her stomach had growled, the more her mouth had grumbled. Jewelstar had been the one to take pity on the rest of them and drag Adora to the assemblage of food carts just off the main square.

“Feel better?” He asks. 

“Much,” Adora says. “Sorry for getting...cranky. I’m going to call Catra real quick and see what she’s up to.”

She gives two taps to the chip sitting snugly in her ear — twice to bypass the group call and go straight to her first synced contact, Catra — and waits for the familiar buzz as the chip goes live. 

Catra answers immediately. _“Hello?”_

“Hey,” Adora says brightly. The chip distorts Catra’s voice a bit, and there’s the usual rush of background noise, but it still floods Adora’s chest with warmth to hear her. “How’s it going?”

On the other end, she hears a series of muttered curses, and then, _“It’s going fine. Hey, where are you?”_

Adora raises one eyebrow, even though she knows Catra can’t see her. “Um,” she turns to survey the area she is in. All manner of food carts stretch around the square, each one more brightly colored than the next. Some of them hover off the ground, others have wheels. “Jewelstar and I are still in the food court. You have got to try some of this stuff, Catra! They have food from dozens of planets. Maybe hundreds.”

On the other side of the line, Catra laughs. The sound alone instantly dissipates the nerves Adora had felt at Catra’s strained voice. Most of them, at least. 

_“Of course you’re focusing on food. Hey — stop, that.”_

“Catra?”

 _“Sorry,”_ comes Catra’s tinny voice. _“Hey, I’m in main the — plaza — square — thing. You should meet me over here.”_

“Okay,” Adora says brightly. “We’re not too far. By the fountain?”

_“Yeah, exactly.”_

“Do you want me to bring you any food? You really should try these… sticks.”

“Skewers,” Jewelstar supplies helpfully.

 _“Sure_ ,” Catra says _. “Hey, uh — can you make that two?”_

“Oh, look who’s focusing on food now,” Adora teases. “Yeah, I’ll see you in a few.” 

_“Thanks, Adora. I love you.”_

“I love you too,” Adora says, voice soft. “We’ll be there soon.”

She taps the chip to end the call and relays the information to Jewelstar. When the two of them sidle up to the counter again, the beaked cook manning the cart gives them a smug, knowing nod, and Adora feels embarrassed for her initial (and vocal) shock at seeing the offerings dancing across the holo-menu.

It’s while they’re waiting for the second order to process that Jewelstar says, “You two are cute.” 

Adora’s face colors. A familiar rush of embarrassment settles over her, the feeling nice in its own strange way. She brushes a hand through her loose hair and says furtively, “Thanks.” 

“It’s been about a year for you two, huh?”

“Yeah,” Adora says “Just over.” 

This isn’t their first time seeing the Star Siblings since that first chance meeting before rescuing Catra — the trio had been kind enough to stop by Etheria during some of their initial planning for interdimensional travel, at which point it had become pretty apparent that Catra was the certain _somebody_ on Horde Prime’s ship Adora had spoken about. Their paths have crossed multiple times since for diplomatic purposes, but Xenia as a stop was more vacation than anything else, and this meeting had been pure serendipity. Nevertheless, it’s good to see familiar faces.

They finally get their second orders, the skewers wrapped in gauzy papers and handed across the counter in a steaming bag. No matter how earnestly Adora tries to pay, Jewelstar simply waves her hand away and passes a handful of local currency to the vendor. 

They make their way through the market leisurely, chatting about the random stalls they see as they pass through the different avenues. The market is huge, a crowded daily affair in the largest city on this continent. The entirety of Xenia is bereft of magic, but it’s hard to believe that while looking at the vibrant stalls and seeing the sheer scale of ingenuity of the planet’s inhabitants. Long before the First Ones had disappeared and the Horde had pushed its reaches out across the universe, the small but conveniently located planet had been a crossroads for intergalactic travelers. Some of those travelers had put down roots, and in the thousands of years that had passed it had flourished into a vibrant, cosmopolitan planet. They don’t need She-Ra to come unlock a magic that had been bound by the first ones, but it’s still fun to explore.

As Adora looks around, she can still see the remains of the Horde influence. Every now and then, they’ll pass a tech vendor selling repurposed parts from Horde bots. One alley wall is so covered with graffiti that one can barely see the enormous Horde symbol stamped onto the side of the alley, but it’s still there. As she looks at the vendors happily selling brightly spotted fruits or strings of glass beads or wares from far flung planets, Adora can’t help but be awed by the beauty of what has grown up from between the cracks of Horde Prime’s rule. 

They aren’t too far from the main square, yet the journey is still long enough to make Adora half consider popping open bag and eating Catra’s share. She considers it even more when Jewelstar excuses himself to take a call from a colleague, leaving nobody to witness her thievery. 

When she sees Catra, she nearly trips on the flat ground. 

She’s sitting facing the side, one knee bent on the rim of the fountain, the other tapping a lazy rhythm on the stone underfoot. Behind her, the fountain roars. The water that pours from it is lavender in color and clear as a perfectly cut amethyst, and it lims Catra in a hazy glow. 

She looks beautiful, but that’s not what stops Adora — if she stopped and gawked everytime Catra looked beautiful, she would never get anything done. What draws her to a halt so abrupt she nearly topples face first into the ground isn’t Catra’s beauty, but the fact that she isn’t alone. 

Sitting on the rim with her, legs far too short to touch the ground, is a child. 

The closer Adora gets, the more she can hear of the bizarre duo’s exchange. She raises an eyebrow. The chips that Entrapta had fashioned for them held perhaps the most sophisticated translation tech in the universe. In addition to being a handy communication device, it could also translate pretty much any known language — and, on the one occasion that they stumbled onto an unknown language, had been pretty fast to adapt and process anything new. 

It definitely can’t translate _baby talk_ , though, because no matter what comes out of the child’s mouth, Adora just hears gibberish. 

You wouldn’t be able to tell, listening to Catra. She raises an eyebrow at the toddler in front of her, reacting every now and then with a dry — but not unkind —“Oh yeah?” “Sounds rough.” “Cool, and then what?” 

The kid babbles on and on in front of her, occasionally flailing in excitement. Adora’s breath hitches when the child wobbles slightly at one point, worried they’re going to pitch and fall over into the bubbling waters below — but Catra, unbothered, sticks an arm out to reign them back in, and the child carries on. 

Before she can announce her presence, Catra turns and sees Adora. Her eyes drift to the bag in Adora’s hand and Adora gets the sense that she isn’t the only reason for the smile that settles over Catra’s pretty face. 

“Hey, Adora,” Catra says. She turns to face Adora, feet kicking against the base of the fountain. “How’s it hanging?”

“Good,” says Adora cautiously, holding out the paper bin. “I see you made a friend?”

She settles down to sit beside Catra, leaning forward slightly so she can peer at the child on the other side of Catra. Scales trace up their neck, over their smooth head. Terralian, or at least related. They had made a stop on Terralia a couple of trips back. Aside from the ring of feathers around the necks of adults, the Terralians had so resembled Rogelio’s species — especially the children — that Adora couldn’t help but wonder if they had crossed over to Etheria before it had been swallowed by Despondos. 

“Huh? Oh, yeah, Adora meet Borri. Borri, meet Adora.” Catra says, more focused on the box in her lap than anything else. Adora can feel her practically purring at her side when she opens the box and gets hit with a scent that is at once sweet and savory. She peels back the greasy paper wrapping the skewers and Adora watches in amusement when Catra’s head whips up. “Ew, Adora, what is this? It’s _blue!”_

Adora laughs, and kicks her foot against the fountain. “That’s just the sauce! It’s like, a berry… marinara?” 

“Marinade?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Food shouldn’t be blue.”

“You liked that cake, though,” Adora reminds her. “On… Infera, I think?”

“Yeah, they also _set it on fire_ and it wasn’t blue after that,” Catra grumbles, shaking her head. Her hair short hair is pulled back into two stubby ponytails that bob with the movement. 

“Look, if you don’t like it, I’ll get you something else. But just try it!”

 _“Fine,”_ Catra relents. She gingerly lifts a skewer from the box, eyeing it warily. 

“If you hate it, I’ll get you something else,” Adora says. She leans forward past Catra and offers a smile that is only slightly manic to Borri. “Borri, do you want some?”

Addressed by Adora for the first time, the child stares at her. They blink owlishly — then shuffle so they’re hiding behind Catra. 

Catra rolls her eyes, leaning forward so that Adora can see the kid in the space behind her. As if playing a game of peekaboo, the child lurches forward immediately, shifting so that their body is once more obscured by Catra’s slouched form. 

“Wow, you really do have a way with kids, huh,” says Catra. To the child she says, holding out the second skewer, “Hey, can you eat this?”

The child says… something. Adora isn’t quite sure what. Catra just holds their gaze, and eventually Borri takes it with stubby, scaly hands. Adora resists the urge to hover, watching in fear they gnaw at the skewer, worried they might poke the roof of their mouth or inhale a chunk too big for them to swallow. “Can you… understand them?”

Catra turns to look at her, one eyebrow raised. “Uh, no?”

“But you were just— you know their name!” 

“Yeah, that’s one of like, four words the kid has said, I just assumed. What do you want me to do, googoo-gaga the kid? Would you want someone talking to you like that?

Adora blinks. “Huh. I hadn’t thought of it like that. Um, what are you doing with a Terralian toddler, anyway?” 

“Found it,” says Catra, “I was looking around for something for Scorpia — you know how she loses it when you bring back like, space rocks or little statues or whatever — and it was just like… there. Crying. Wouldn’t stop following me and—” she flicks her tail, lightly tapping at the child’s head — “trying to grab onto my tail. I figured I’d come here and ask around or see if there’s any way to like, contact the parents.” 

“Huh,” Adora says. “Any luck?”

Around a mouthful of syrupy meat, Catra says, “Does it look like I’ve had any luck?”

Adora gives Catra a light elbow to the ribs, shaking her head. “I can help. It will be easier with two people.” 

“Thanks, Adora.” Catra drops the wooden skewer back into the paper the food had been wrapped in. To the child she says, “Are you done or no? Still eating?”

Borri resolutely babbles something back. Catra shoots a glance to Adora that is equal parts affection and exasperation. “Let’s give them a moment.” 

Adora kicks her legs back against the stone of the fountain, watching Catra’s interaction with Borri quietly. She’s surprisingly patient when it comes to children, a kindness she rarely affords adults. Unlike Adora, her shoulders don’t bunch up with the same tension around them, even when they annoy her. It’s strange — they had the same upbringing, yet Catra is so much more intuitive with children. 

Then again, Catra is intuitive with everyone. Even at her most abrasive, she has a certain charisma that pulls people in, and a way of reading people that simply can’t be learned. Adora would know; she has tried and failed many times in their diplomatic journeys. 

Borri makes it apparent that they are done eating by simply dropping the skewer onto the rim of the fountain. Catra scrambles to grab it, gently admonishing them for littering, and Adora runs the sticky remains of their food to a trash bin. 

When she comes back, Borri is sitting on Catra’s lap and making a herculean effort to reach her ears with their chubby hands. Most adults wouldn’t walk out of an attempt like that without at least a few battle scars —but Catra’s claws are carefully retracted, her hands gently holding the toddler in place as it flails on her lap. Her mouth is open in a fang baring laugh as she tips her head away from those small hands. 

“Oh, good, you’re back,” Catra says when she sees Adora again. “Rescue me.” 

Adora tries. She really does. 

When she plasters a big smile on her face and says far too brightly, “Hey, kiddo! Let’s, uh, go see if you have parents somewhere around here?” it only results in tears. 

“Good grief, Adora,” Catra says, tilting her head around the sobbing toddler. She shifts her hands to support the toddler’s weight as she stands. 

“What? I didn’t do anything!” 

“I’d be freaked if you made that face at me too.” 

“It’s a smile! _I am smiling!”_

“You look hysterical. It’s terrifying.” She shifts the toddler onto her hip. To Borri, she says, “God, you’re heavy.” To Adora she says, “Come on let’s go find his parents before we get accused of kidnapping.” 

They wander the market aimlessly, moving from stall to tall trying to find any kind of information on how to get in contact with someone for a missing child. Once Borri overcomes the trauma of Adora’s attempted babysitting, things go pretty smoothly — Borri watches the market with the wide-eyed wonder of the young, smiling when vendors wave at them or trying to grab at hanging charms or garlands of herbs as they float by different stalls. 

Still, the market is huge, and Catra and Adora have no way to find the parents. The more time passes, the more anxious both Adora and the toddler become. Catra, too — she keeps her voice low and even when she speaks, but Adora can tell from the way her ears are flattened back against her skull, and the bristling of her tail. 

Adora comes to a stop so abruptly that Catra, who had been trailing behind her within the press of people, runs right into her back. 

“Adora, what the—”

“This isn’t working,” Adora says. 

“Yeah, _obviously,”_ Catra snaps in response, apparently at the point where her calm tone can only be extended Borri. “We should—”

“I have an idea,” Adora says. “Stand back.” 

Catra’s eyebrows hike up her forehead. “Wh—”

_“For the honor of Grayskull!”_

A familiar rush overwhelms Adora. The world shifts around her — or something within her shifts, it’s always hard to tell. Warmth suffuses her skin, a familiar sensation, and when she opens her eyes the difference in height between her and Catra is more than just a few inches. Whispers of shock and awe rustle through the crowd around them, but She-Ra is wholly focused on Catra and the star-struck child in her arms. 

“Showoff,” Catra mutters. 

“You like it,” She-Ra teases. In an act of sheer will, she dismisses her sword but retains her form. She holds her hands out for Borri. “Here, let me.” 

Catra’s gaze moves from She-Ra to Borri as if to assess the situation. Unlike the open distaste the toddler had shown for Adora, they now stare at She-Ra with the same unabashed awe they had shown when staring at dangling Geolonian beads or Pittarian flowers. It stings, just a little, but she expects it by now; there is something ethereal about She-Ra that commands not only attention but trust. She is a protector by nature, a being that others naturally gravitate toward and rely on. 

Borri shoves their hands out. Catra scrambles to keep them from falling. “Okay, bye,” she says with a roll of her eyes, holding them out for She-Ra. 

The difference between She-Ra — an eight-foot tall being of unmatched strength — and the Terralian toddler is laughable, she’s sure. Catra has spent the last hour or so shifting the toddler from hip to hip in an attempt to save each arm from going numb. To She-Ra, the child is light as a feather and small as a kitten. 

“Hi there,” she says, suddenly far more confident. That, more than anything else, is the difference between Adora and She-Ra. Confidence. “Up you go.” 

“Adora!” 

“What?” She-Ra asks with a cocked eyebrow, moving Borri so that they’re sitting on her shoulders. She knows from the way they had squirmed on Catra’s lap that they are able to support themself, but she still carefully anchors one hand against their back. Her other hand she uses to anchor one of their chubby legs to her shoulder, her hand so large it nearly swallows their leg. “They’re fine. It’ll be easier for their parents to find them this way. Do you have a better idea?”

Catra shrugs. “Just… be careful.” 

“Always am.” 

The market is currently home to a menagerie of different alien species, some brightly coloured, others sporting extra limbs.The sheer diversity is unlike anything She-Ra has seen, even on Etheria or any of the other densely populated planets they have visited. She stands head and shoulders over the majority of them, elevating Borri to a position high above the crowd. If her height alone wasn’t enough to turn heads, the soft golden light that seemed to shroud her supernatural form would do the trick. 

She turns heads, sets the crowds whispering around them. Catra cuts a path through the onlookers and gawkers with her glare alone. It’s not jealousy — Catra doesn’t particularly care about people looking at what she has that others don’t, and something about the gleam of her predatory smile in those instances makes She-Ra think she actually likes it — but it’s much easier to focus on the issue at hand when people aren’t falling at She-Ra’s feet with confessions of love and admiration. 

In fact, when they finally find Borri’s parents, there are neither confessions of love nor admiration to be found. It takes ten minutes for anyone to diffuse the situation when a Terrallian man screams, _“My baby!”_ and nearly wrenches a fistfull of blonde hair from She-Ra’s long ponytail. One father huffs and puffs the whole time while the other apologetically shakes Catra’s and She-Ra’s hands more times than is probably necessary, breathlessly thanking them for returning their child unharmed. 

“You know,” says Adora (back in her own form and relieved for the anonymity it offers) as the two of them wave Borri and their fathers away, “I’m going to miss them a little bit.”

Catra snorts. “They didn’t even like you.” 

Adora bumps Catra with her hip. “Hey, that’s not fair! Not all of us have ears and a tail!”

“Yeah, you just cheat and turn into She-Ra, the human jungle gym,” Catra taunts.

With a sly smile, Adora slips one arm to settle around Catra’s shoulder, pulling her in against her side. “Aww, are you jealous? Do you want to ride around on She-Ra’s shoulders too.”

“Shut up,” Catra says, but she still slips an arm around Adora’s waist, hand anchored loosely at her hip. “Ugh, kids are exhausting. Way more effort than they’re worth.”

Adora can’t help but agree. As cute as Borri was, she has half a mind to lay down on the ground of the market and pass out then and there. She has a sneaking suspicion now that the concept of “nap time” is just as much for giving parents a break as it is for the children. “I don’t know how parents do it,” she says. 

“Me neither. Come on.” Catra nods down the street. The larger of Xenia’s two suns has begun to descend in the sky, meaning that soon the market will begin packing up. It casts the colorful stalls and bustling patrons in a rosy hue. “We have _hours_ worth of souvenir shopping to make up for.” 

**_iii._ **

“What,” says Glimmer flatly, “Is _that_.”

 _That_ is a royal pain in Adora’s ass. _That_ has been a royal pain in Adora’s ass for the last few months, one she was hoping would be left behind the second they shot back off into deep space. 

_That_ is a petulant teenage year girl sitting atop a cargo crate like it’s a throne and somehow managing to look both terrified and arrogant at the same time. 

The first thing out of the petulant teenage girl’s mouth is, “Don’t tell my parents.” 

Glimmer laughs at that. She outright laughs, a sound so bordering on hysterical that Bow has to come up behind her and give her shoulders a brief squeeze to calm her down. 

“I can’t believe this,” she says. And then, again, “I can’t believe this! After all of that — after everything it took to get Geolon to even consider joining the coalition—”

“—deep breaths, Glimmer—” 

_“Months,_ actual months! And some _toddler—”_

“I’m thirteen,” says the girl, with all of the condescension bestowed upon a thirteen year old girl who is unfortunate enough to be the smartest person in the universe, at least in her mind. She fixes a glare over Glimmer’s shoulder, eyes narrowing at Adora as if she finds her to be her complete opposite, the dumbest person in the universe. “And a half.” 

“Half a person—”

“Glimmer,” says Bow patiently, voice tight through his smile. “Maybe _don’t_ make fun of the princess, since we just worked very hard for this alliance?”

That does her in. Glimmer whirls around, the movement so fast that if they weren’t lightyears away from her Runestone, Adora would think she had teleported. Her hair, longer than Adora has ever seen it, hangs in rose and lavender waves that brush her shoulders. With her long hair and apocalyptic expression, she reminds Adora of Angella. The thought still brings a pain of emotion to her chest. 

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Glimmer asks, voice high and brittle as the scream from a tea kettle. “Me making fun of the princess? As if we haven’t practically _kidnapped_ some royal brat?” 

“We didn’t _kidnap_ her,” Bow says. “She just stowed away for… some reason?” He looks up at their interloper expectantly. 

The royal brat — Princess Titania — glares at them from her perch. Her blue eyes are clear as cut sapphires. Even in the dim storeroom, her dark blue skin sparkles. Like the rest of her royal family, it’s marbled through with different hues, paler in some places and darker in others, sparkling when the light hits it. She’s a petite girl, but she’s basically solid rock. The crate she is using as a chair bows under her weight. 

Princess Titania huffs and mutters something under her breath. Adora has a feeling she knows what this is all about. She plasters on the best smile she can, even though all she wants to do is scream. “Look, your…. highness—”

“Hey, Adora, I couldn’t find anything in the kitchen, I — what are you all doing in a supply closet?”

Adora stiffens immediately. Everyone turns in unison, and there she is: _some reason_ for a dumb kid to stow away on an a diplomatic envoy on an intergalactic mission. 

They were well out of Geolon's orbit by the time anyone noticed things going awry. Their carefully catalogued nutrition stores were still plentiful, but with only four people on the ship it wasn't hard to tell when someone was having more than their share — even more so when someone was eating for a full extra person. Combine that with the weird noises, things being found randomly throughout the ship… 

There are a thousand ways that the intruder could have turned out worse. Adora would have taken most of them over _this._

Catra is barely in the storage room before Titania jumps to her feet. She bounds across the room, the sound of her feet against the metal floor louder than thunder. Unaccustomed to those made of mere flesh and bone rather than mineral, she throws her arms around Catra in what could quite literally be a bone crushing hug. 

Adora tenses immediately, shoulders going stiff at the shocked expression on Catra's face at the impact. She can practically feel the rush as She-Ra threatens to overwhelm her and she tamps it down as best she can. Catra doesn't need to be protected from some kid, thick as that kid's skin (and skull, if anyone is asking Adora) may be. 

Titania apparently has no regard for the fact that the solid marble of her arms has probably just left a ring of bruises around Catra's waist. She hugs Catra like she’s her favorite toy, rambling the entire time about how they’re on a _First One’s ship_ and there are _stars outside_ and — 

“Titania,” Catra says, grasping the girl by the shoulders and pulling her firmly off of her. “What are you _doing_ here?” 

“I—” says Titania, her arrogant air finally faltering at Catra’s response. She tosses her head, and the sound of her braids tangling together sounds like pebbles rustling on a shore. “I wanted to come with you! You _said_ that one day I could visit you in Etheria, and that —”

 _“One day,_ Titania,” says Catra. Her eyes dart from the young princess to the rest of her companions helplessly. Glimmer is squeezing a ration bar into a pulp, which Adora figures is better than her doing the same to Titania’s head, and Bow is tapping away at a tablet, no doubt trying to open a signal to Geolon before they’re too far out of orbit. Adora herself is grinding her teeth together and trying not to lose it. “What were you thinking? Stowing away on a ship? Do you have any idea how _dangerous_ that is?”

Titania’s lip wobbles. Tears are welling in her eyes, threatening to spill over like a flooded riverbank. It takes every fiber of her being for Adora not to roll her eyes. She meets Catra’s gaze over the girl’s head and tries to school her expression into something as neutral as possible. 

The heir of Geolon had been a thorn in her side during the many, many, _many_ months that Adora and her friend had been planetbound. At first she had found it cute. Despite a brattiness that Adora had chalked up to a combination of puberty and status, Titania is a smart girl. They’ve done enough of these voyages by now that Adora has run into a variety of different styles of both parenting and diplomacy, and Titania is not the first heir who had sat in on meetings between the Etherian envoy and local government. At the time, it had given Adora hope to see the way that the curious teen had engaged with their group even while the leadership of Geolon had been… hesitant, to put it mildly. 

It had taken a handful of weeks to see that Titania’s interest lay not in politics or Etheria, but in _Catra._

Escaping the girl had been a nightmare. The heir had been hell-bent on taking up every moment of Catra’s time, trailing her before and after meetings to ply her with questions about Etherian culture, or her role as Royal Counsellor, or what her favorite food she had ever eaten while traveling was, and had she tried any Geolonian cuisine? 

Adora had found it insufferable. Catra had found it annoying at worst. From the safety in their own quarters of the intricate cave system that made up the Geolonian castle, the only place they could find respite from the princess, she had once asked Adora, _“What am I supposed to do, Adora, tell the twelve year old heir of a government we’re trying to schmooze to fuck off? She’s just a bored kid.”_

At the time, Adora had reluctantly admitted she was right. Titania may have been annoying, and she may have drastically been cutting into Adora’s time with her girlfriend, but she wasn’t worth endangering their mission over. Now that Titania’s hero worship turned crush had bloomed into a potential intergalactic felony, Adora kind of wished she had snapped at the girl earlier. 

She doesn’t have to do that now, though, because Catra is _fuming._

“Did you even think about what you were doing? What do you think your parents are going to say?”

“I,” says Titania, voice wobbly. She sniffles — and there go the waterworks. “I just — I just wanted to see you! And I didn’t want to be trapped there forever!” 

“Yeah, well did you stop to think about what anyone else wanted?” Catra snaps. “ _Anyone_ except yourself?”

Adora’s eyebrows shoot to her hairline at Catra’s tone and volume. She shares a quick glance with Bow, and sees surprise mirrored on his face. Catra has a hot temper — ending the war didn’t necessarily change that aspect of her personality — but she has gotten a lot better at tamping her frustration down. She doesn’t raise her voice anymore, not like she used to. Adora has never heard her yell at a kid. 

Her voice climbs higher, seemingly even louder for the tight confines of the storeroom they are all packed into. “Of all of the selfish, _stupid—”_

“Okay—” Bow says, dragging the word out at the same moment that Adora lets out a sharp, _“Catra.”_

The room suddenly goes very quiet. Nearly silent, if not for the sounds of suppressed sniffles coming from Titania. Tears slip freely down her stony cheeks. 

Adora notices the instant that her actions register on Catra’s face. Eyes wide, horrified, she takes a step toward Titania. 

Crying louder than ever, the girl pushes past her. The sound of heavy footsteps and body-wracking sobs echoes down the hall in her wake. 

Adora’s first instinct is to comfort Catra. Catra must know that, too — her eyes dart to Adora and then she bites out a gruff, “Don’t follow me,” and stalks out of the room, footsteps fading in the opposite direction from Titania.

Adora, Bow, and Glimmer ping-pong knowing glances at one another for a moment. Suddenly Adora feels like she’s twenty years old again, trying not to rip the hair out of her head while trying to get through to her former best friend. 

“Sooooo,” says Glimmer. “I guess I’ll go reach out to Geolon?”

* * *

Adora knocks on the door to the former brig. Once, twice. She forces herself to take a deep breath. After all of this, she doesn’t know how _she_ ended up on babysitting duty — but Catra has the door their room bolted shut, and Bow and Glimmer are in the front of the ship desperately trying to salvage their coalition with Geolon, leaving Adora to placate the whims of a teenager. 

It fills her with a strange sense of deja-vu. She has done this before, once — with Catra. She had stood at the threshold of this room with water and food that she couldn’t make Catra take, pleading with her to let her in after rescuing her from Horde Prime. She hadn’t exactly been patient then, either. 

She takes in a deep breath, willing her annoyance to stay at bay. Titania is just a kid. An annoying kid, but a kid nonetheless. She can handle this. 

“Titania?” Adora calls, knocking softly on the door. “Titania, I’ve brought some food.” 

A beat passes.

“Go _away,”_ comes Titania’s voice, sharp and ragged and wretched with crying. 

Adora worries her lower lip between her teeth. She feels a sense of begrudging sympathy for the girl — until a snapped, “You’re so _annoying,”_ comes from within the room. She wants to bang her head against the door — or Titania’s, but they have enough of an intergalactic incident on their hands with the kidnapping, she doesn’t need to add assault as well. Besides, she has a feeling that even the metal of the First Ones’ ship might not hold up to the force of a Geolon teenager's head being used as a battering ram. They’re a sturdy species. 

“Look,”Adora tries again, willing herself to be patient. “We’ve gone through the rations, I know you haven’t had anything to eat all day. Please just take the food.” 

Silence. 

“If this is about Catra—”

“— _Go away—”_

“— I know she’s sorry. She didn’t — she didn’t mean it like that.” 

Another moment passes. Ador has half a mind to just give up and leave the water and the meal waiting to gather dust in the hallway — and then the door slowly opens. 

Titania peers up at her with glassy eyes, mouth tight. Her gaze darts through the hallway, as if checking to see if Adora had brought reinforcements. Adora doesn’t know if the sag of Titania’s shoulders when she realizes it’s just Adora is from relief or disappointment. 

“Did she say that?”

“Well, not tech—”

The door comes flying closed. Adora’s hand shoots out to stop it. Titania is strong, though, and before she knows what is happening, warm light floods the room and the hallway as her self-preservation instincts kick in. 

Titania gapes up at her, arm going slack in shock at the towering warrior standing before her. She-Ra is more worried about the door. It’s a miracle it hadn’t crumpled between their combined strength. 

“Oh, good,” says She-Ra breathlessly. “We really can’t afford any repairs to this ship, not until we’re in the same galaxy as Entrapta again. Look, can we just — you know, talk?”

Mouth still comically ajar, Titania releases the door. She disappears into the room and She-Ra follows, gently pulling the door closed behind her. 

The brig is homier than it had been almost two years ago, when Catra had been the one curled up on the makeshift bid. It feels like a lifetime has passed since they rescued her from Horde Prime’s ship, yet also like it just happened yesterday. It’s more crowded now with supplies and random things collected during their journeys, with the makeshift bed pushed to the corner of the room. 

Titania sits on it heavily. She-Ra doesn’t even try to sit next to her but instead paces the room, torn between turning back into Adora and trying to be as non-threatening as possible and needing the emotional reassurance of her warrior form while battling the emotions of a teenager. If She-Ra hadn’t calmed the girl down, she had at least shocked her into compliance…

After a moment of awkward silence, Titania flings herself backwards. She-Ra flinches at the sound it makes under her inhuman weight, the sound of marble crashing against metal dulled by the thin insulation of the mattress. She braces herself for — a rant? More tears? The verbal barrage that the girl has been holding back for months?

Instead, Titania rolls over and muffles a scream into a pillow.

She does it once or twice more, another brazen display of frustration, and She-Ra mentally offers up thanks (not for the first time) that the First Ones had made their ship nearly sound-proof. The last thing she needs is for Titania’s parents to hear their daughter screaming bloody murder while Bow and Glimmer are trying to placate them. 

Once she’s exhausted herself, Titania says through the pillow, “She _hates_ me.” 

She-Ra raises an eyebrow. She had been prepared for a verbal onslaught, not… this. 

“She doesn’t hate you,” She-Ra says with a sigh. 

“She _hates_ me,” Titania repeats. She bats the pillow onto the ground, and forces herself to sit up. The glare she shoots across the room is almost a relief to She-Ra. The anger is easier to handle. “She thinks I’m just a kid, and now she thinks I’m just a dumb kid—”

“You are a kid,” She-Ra says automatically. Titania’s expression darkens, and she follows it up with a stuttered, “I mean — you _are,_ but you’re not _dumb._ Well, not like. Dumb dumb.”

Titania levels a look at She-Ra that comminicates without words that she thinks that She-Ra is, in fact, dumb dumb. It’s refreshing to know that not even being a part of a chain of legendary warriors is enough to cow the arrogance of a thirteen year old. 

“Titania — your highness — that’s _why_ she’s so upset,” She-Ra says, coming to kneel in front of the girl. With She-Ra’s height, they’re essentially eye to eye now. “She doesn’t hate you, she’s worried about you. I know it seems glamorous, but what we do is _really_ dangerous. Every time we leave Etheria, we leave knowing we might never come back. Your poor parents — they must be worried sick. 

Titania lets out a wet scoff. “My parents don’t care about me, or what I do.” 

It stings to hear those words. It’s easier to push down the surge of emotions as She-Ra, but she can’t hold them fully at bay. It’s the familiar burn of jealousy that she had felt years ago, when Glimmer would vent about her mother’s overbearing nature, or when Bow exasperatedly complains about his fathers’ expectations of him. It is an unrealized blessing to have parents to be annoyed at, one neither Adora nor Catra had ever known. 

That’s not what Titania needs to hear right now, though. Shoving her own feelings to the back of her mind, She-Ra says, “Your parents care about you very much, Titania.” 

“No, they don’t,” the teen insists. “They don’t care about what I want, they just care about having their perfect little princess. I didn’t ask for this! I don’t want to be trapped on Geolon forever!” 

“I know.” 

“They — you know?” 

“I know,” She-Ra says again simply. She somewhat relishes the surprise on Titania’s face. No doubt she had been gearing up for another lecture, something about _privilege_ and _duty._ Instead, She-Ra lets out a sigh and focuses her unnaturally blue eyes on the girl. “I never asked to be She-Ra, you know. I didn’t want to be.” 

“Please,” says Titania with the bluntness of a child, “Who wouldn’t choose to be eight feet tall with amazing hair?”

“Trust me, it gets old after the first time you smack your head on a door,” She-Ra says. “Titania, we don’t… get to choose others’ expectations of us. I know what it’s like to have that weight on your shoulders, and I know what it’s like to feel like that’s all other people want of you. For a long time, I thought She-Ra was the only thing I had to offer others. But the people who love you — like your parents — they love you for more than what you can do for them. Your parents aren’t worried about losing an heir, they’re worried about losing _you.”_

A moment of silence lapses between them, eventually punctuated by a sniffle. Crystalline tears well up in Titania’s eyes and she whispers, “They didn’t even know I was gone.”

Her voice breaks halfway through the sentence. This must be the crux of the issue — not Catra, not a juvenile sense of wanderlust, but a fundamental hurt at the idea of being forgotten, of not being enough.

Acting on impulse, She-Ra leans forward and takes Titania’s hands in her own. Her pale hands dwarf Titania’s dark, dainty ones. Her fingers are cool and hard as marble in She-Ra’s grasp, and she squeezes back with a force that would break the hands of a normal human. 

“That’s not true,” she says gently. “Look, we were out of range — we’re warp traveling, it’s harder to reach people once you’re so far out. Did you know that as soon as we made it back into your galaxy, we were getting communication requests immediately?”

Titania peers at her dubiously. “Really?”

“Really,” She-Ra says. 

“Were they… mad?” 

“A little bit,” She-Ra admits, recalling the near hysterical tyrade Queen Beryl had unleashed on Glimmer. “Bow’s talking them down, though. He’s good at that. Talking. Do you want to go talk to them?” At Titania’s silence, she adds, “You don’t have to right away. Not if you’re not ready.”

Titania takes in a deep breath. She lifts her head to the ceiling, blinking back unshed tears and says, “I’m going to be so grounded.” After a moment, she adds, “Literally.” 

She-Ra lets out a short laugh. “Probably.” 

“You’re good at it too.”

“What?”

“Talking,” says Titania in an embarrassed rush. “Like Bow is. You’re — thanks.” 

Neither She-Ra nor Adora have ever been accused of that before. Her bright eyes go wide. She feels inexplicably moved at the comment. Titania is annoying. She-Ra is certain she will continue to be annoying. Still, she can’t help the sudden fondness she feels for the girl, especially when Titania surges forward, trying to fit as much of her arms as she can around She-Ra’s shoulders. 

It feels like being hit by a wall of solid rock, and suddenly she is _very_ happy with her decision to transfer into She-Ra.

* * *

When Adora lets herself into her and Catra’s shared room nearly an hour later, Catra is laying on the bed, Melog curled up against her chest. 

The room is small, like all of the living quarters on the ship are, but it’s cozy. The bed is only slightly larger than the ones the two of them had grown up sharing, but it’s much easier to fall asleep in the quiet of space rather than amidst a cacophony of snoring and sleep-talking. The quilt laying across their bed was handmade by a former queen on the planet of Pidara who had nearly adopted Catra and Adora on their own. The two travel light, but they have begun to accumulate souvenirs and knick knacks and gifts from their travels, just like they always do. In many ways, this ship feels more like a home than anywhere else in the universe. 

Adora gently settles down beside Catra. Melog doesn’t bristle or go red with agitation, which she takes as a good sign. She settles a hand against Catra’s side, rubbing a light circle into the inside of her hip through the fabric of her clothes and says, “Hey.”

Catra doesn’t say anything. She does shift, though, moving her arm to settle a hand on top of Adora’s. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Adora asks softly. 

Catra mutters something into Melog’s head. At Adora’s sound of inquiry she lets out a tremendous sigh and rolls onto her back, lifting her eyes to meet Adora’s, and says, “There’s nothing to talk about. I was a dick.” 

“Maybe a little,” Adora admits. She shifts further onto the bed. It’s a tight fit to sit together like this, and she compensates by asking, “Can I…?” and then shifting Catra’s head to rest on her crossed legs. Catra acquiesces, shifting so that she is facing Adora’s abdomen. 

Adora carefully works the hair tie out of Catra’s hair, allowing it to spill loose over her lap. It’s long enough to brush between her shoulder blades now. Not nearly as long as she had kept it while growing up, but far longer than the chop Horde Prime had given her. Sometimes, when she’s blowing strands out of her face, she’ll mention potentially cutting it again. 

Adora loves it either way. She brushes a strand of hair back from Catra’s face, admiring the high arch of her cheekbone, the sharp line of her jaw. She works one hand carefully to the space just behind each of Catra’s ears, slowly scratching at that space there. 

“Don’t comfort me,” Catra says, glaring at Adora’s stomach. “Is she still upset?”

“Probably,” says Adora truthfully. “She’s talking to her parents right now. Bow’s got her set up in the former brig. Not the fanciest accommodations for a princess.” 

“I shouldn’t have yelled at her like that,” Catra says, voice quiet. 

Adora doesn’t say anything. She works her fingers in slow circles, trying to soothe the tension from Catra’s body. She herself had been moments from shaking the girl, and Glimmer had snapped at her too — but this is different. Neither of them are close with Titania like Catra is, and neither had shouted at her like that. Adora can’t exactly condone her actions, even if a petty part of her wishes it had been her. Instead, she focuses on bringing Catra down from the rush of frustration, on coaxing her concerns out of her. She knows Catra will talk when she’s ready. 

Still, it breaks her heart when Catra says in a tiny voice, “I don’t want to be like _her.”_

Adora doesn’t have to ask to know who Catra is talking about. The spectre of Shadow Weaver looms over them in many things, this being one of them. They don’t talk about her often, but when they do it's often with choked voices and tears barely held at bay. Her life, her death, all of it haunts both of them. She knows why Catra keeps her voice soft around children, why she would never raise a hand against them. It’s the same reason why even the smallest static shock will send her ears flattening back against her head, why the thought of anyone other than Adora touching her face makes her curl in on herself. 

Shifting so that one arm is draped over Catra’s shoulders in a loose embrace, Adora folds herself down over Catra, leaning so that her forehead is pressed to Catra’ temple. She gathers Catra tighter against her own body and says, “You’re not, Catra. You’re nothing like her.” 

Catra says nothing. Her ragged breathing indicates that she’s holding back tears, though. Adora presses her lips gently to the high point of Catra’s cheekbone. They’ll talk about this more later — when it isn’t so raw, hopefully after Catra has had the chance to apologize. Adora knows that’s what she needs, more than anything. A chance to atone, a chance to set things right. 

“She talked to you?” Catra asks finally. 

“Yeah,” Adora says. The position isn’t comfortable, so she pushes herself back into a sitting position again. “She isn’t, you know. Happy. But I think she’ll forgive you. She’s just a kid, you know?”

“She reminds me so much of me,” Catra says. “When I was her age. She’s so… angry, and selfish, and ambitious, and—”

“— and smart, and scared, and curious.”

“Sure,” Catra says. She sounds exhausted. “What did her parents say? They must be so worried…”

“They were freaked, but I think they'll be okay now that we're on our way back. They're not leaving the confederation... Bow said she apparently left a note, but they hadn’t been able to reach us. He signaled ahead to Aridia too, to let them know we’ll be a week late.” 

“So efficient,” Catra says. 

They sit like that for a while, Catra’s head resting on Adora’s lap, Adora’s hands tangled in Catra’s hair. Catra’s breathing is even and steady, yet Adora can tell she hasn’t fallen asleep. She wouldn’t care if she had — she’ll be Catra’s pillow, or her rock, or whatever Catra needs her to be. 

She couldn’t say how much time passes by the time Catra forces herself into a sitting position. When she does, their faces are close enough that it’s second nature for Adora to lean forward and brush their lips together in a quick kiss. 

Catra rolls her eyes. “Stop, you’ll make me want to stay.” She rests her forehead against Adora’s and says quietly, “Thank you. I love you.” 

“I love you too,” Adora says quietly. She leans in for another kiss, but Catra rears her head back. 

“Stop,” she says, dragging the word out in annoyance. She unfolds herself and stands from the bed, hair an absolute wreck from Adora’s soothing ministrations and says, “Ugh. I have a brat to go apologize to.”

**_iv_.**

The library of Halfmoon Castle spans out ahead of Adora, a vast, circular chamber in an architectural style that she has come to recognize as traditional for the kingdom.The familiar layout reminds her fondly of Brightmoon, though the similarities end there — where her newfound home is a confection of bright colors and delicate ornaments, Halfmoon is more grounded. The library is laid in rich browns and reds, the earthy tones broken up by the spill of leaves and plant life that drip like chandeliers from the ceiling. She follows a familiar course through the many shelves, knowing by now where Catra likes to set up shop. 

She finds her sitting at one of the low tables toward the back of the library. A window that spans the length of the wall arches over her, allowing golden light to flood the room. It bathes Catra in a soft glow and washes her features into a black silhouette. Even in a castle brimming with hundreds of Magicats, Adora would recognize that familiar profile anywhere. 

It’s no surprise that Catra would be here, sitting on a cushion in front of one of Halfmoon’s low tables, a plethora of maps, tomes, and tablets spread out on the table before her. What _does_ surprise Adora is that she isn’t alone. 

The adjustment to Pantheri has been… strange. They had been in communication with a diplomatic envoy from the planet for months before landing, but the outdated technology of Mara’s ship could transfer little more than text and voice. Fiddling with the receiver to try and rig up some kind of display had been even worse, so they had been relying on vocal and written transmission for most of their communications. Nobody had expected to step off of the ship and find magicats. 

That’s what they call themselves, anyway. If there is an Etherian word for them, neither Adora or Catra know what it is. Catra’s origin has always been just another missing piece of a puzzle, her history lost when she had been taken in by the Horde, just like Adora’s. It wasn’t until the arrival of Horde Prime that Catra had even imagined there might be others like her in the universe. She had told Adora about it one sleepless night, one out of many, her voice tiny and tremulous as she recalled the scraps of worlds she had seen while watching the spike of rebellions on Prime’s ship. It had been a possibility since departing Etheria, but the reality is… 

_Disappointing._ That is the word Adora would use, at least. Catra refuses to talk about it. If she lets down her hair, if she swaps out her Etherian garments for the traditional ones of Halfmoon, the most popular kingdom of Pantheri, she can walk down the street without garnering the same stares that her other companions do — but when she opens her mouth, when she speaks, when she makes one of the many cultural faux-pas that all of them are vulnerable to, it becomes increasingly more apparent that Catra is just as foreign here as anyone else. After years under the grip of Horde Prime, the denizens of Halfmoon are wary of outsiders, even ones that look like them. 

The adults, at least — the children are fascinated by them. It’s the first time in their travels that the children haven’t been enamoured of Catra simply for having ears and a tail, their interest piqued far more by her other Etherian companions. 

Glimmer and Bow have difficulty gauging age and gender for magicats, but Adora grew up with one, and she knows that the child sitting across from Catra can’t be more than six or seven years old. She’s just as small as Catra had been at that age, yet so much quieter, more still. Catra’s head is bowed toward hers over the low table, studying something the little girl is writing with a chubby fist clenched tightly around her pencil. 

Adora stills beside one of the bookshelves, standing so that she is mostly obscured by the rich, dark wood of the structure and the lush plant that drapes down its side. She backtracks so that she can peek through the shelves, heart fluttering in her chest as she watches Catra guide the little girl’s hand with the utmost patience.

“Here, just — yeah, like that. Good job,” Catra says. Her head is inclined, meaning Adora can’t see her face — but she knows from the tone of Catra’s voice she must be donning that small, impressed smile, one that Adora loves to bring out. 

“But this one —”

“— it’s each _sound,_ not _syllable,”_ Catra says. “So this one makes the _‘fff’_ sound… Okay, good, just — here, try curving that one more…” 

Their voices drop again in concentration, the silence punctuated by the occasional mutter as Catra guides the little girl’s small hands. Other than their shared feline features, the resemblances stop there — this girl is daintier and darker, her rich brown fur nearly black in some places — but the determined expression on her scrunched up face reminds Adora of a defiant young Catra. 

“See? That looks great. Now why don’t you something else. Maybe… _Adora?”_

Adora nearly jumps out of her skin. She does jump, a little — and it’s a good thing she is currently Adora, because if She-Ra had bumped into the bookshelf behind her, she probably would have knocked the entire structure over rather than a couple of dusty books. She guiltily fumbles to get them back on the shelves, knowing that the Master Librarian already has it out for her after finding her and Catra practicing the ancient Etherian diplomatic art of making out between the stacks a few weeks previously. 

When she peeks around the shelves, Catra is leaning back on her hands, one eyebrow raised in Adora’s direction. Adora can’t help the blush that rises on her cheeks under her scrutiny. 

“Uh — hi,” says Adora, abashed at being caught.

“Hey, Adora,” Catra says, voice casual, smirk in place. Only her eyes betray her — she blinks up at Adora slowly, eyes soft. They’ve been bounced around between different parties all day. It feels good to see her again, especially somewhere other than some stuffy meeting room. 

The child clearly doesn’t feel the same as either of them. Adora has known Catra long enough to know the magicat signs of agitation. The little girl’s ears go flat against her head, her tail sticking straight up behind her. With the same kind of speed and agility Catra has always possessed, she darts across the table, stumbling to hide behind Catra. 

Catra frowns. She pushes up off her hands, rotating her torso to look at the little girl. “Hey — what are you—”

The little dance the two of them would be almost comical if Adora didn’t feel so utterly rejected. Every time Catra twists, the girl reorients herself to more efficiently hide behind her. Finally, Catra just rolls her eyes and lets her be. She looks up at Adora and pats the cushion beside her. 

Adora gaze darts to the little girl crouched at Catra’s side, the tips of her ears just barely showing over Catra’s shoulder. “Um,” she says tactfully. “Maybe I should just…”

“Adora, you’re fine,” Catra says in exasperation. “Come over here.”

She can’t help it. She moves as if drawn by a string, sitting down on the cushion beside Catra wearily. She sits as stiff and formal as if she is having an audience with the Queen of Halfmoon — or worse, her snippy Chancellor — rather than with her girlfriend and some kid. 

She can see the contents of the table better from here. Catra’s neat handwriting and efficient shorthand are scrawled across the pages of two different journals. Shiny new tablets, glowing soft with a digital sheen, sit interspersed between ancient books, their pages so fragile it’s a miracle the Master Librarian isn’t demanding Catra wear gloves. She’s been doing this research for days, cross-referencing what they know of the magic of Pantheri from days preceding Horde control with the results from other planets whose magic they have reignited. All magic is different, always formed and shaped by the world it exists in — but finding patterns amongst the many planets they have visited is instrumental in determining how best to rekindle that magic, and how to avoid any potential fall out. Not to mention that some planets want, like, environmental impact reports. There’s a lot more red tape than Adora would have expected. 

The research table before her is laden with the writings of ancient scholars, of extensive Etherian researchers, and, of course — of a well-traveled diplomat and strategist and advisor to the Queen of Brightmoon. It is also laden with sheathes of scratch paper scrawled with the Etherian phonetic alphabet, some of it in neat, familiar strokes and others in wobbly, uneven ones. 

The sight alone brings a smile to Adora’s face. She pulls one of the sheets of paper closer to her, runs her finger over strings of letters written by two different hands. 

“The least you could do is say _hi,_ you little brat,” Catra says, but her voice is soft. “It’s just Adora.” 

Adora looks up at that. She pitches slightly forward, trying to see the girl around Catra’s side without alarming her. The look leveled back at her is extremely distrustful. 

“And who…”

“This—” Catra has apparently had enough; she shifts back from the table and, using one arm to sweep the girl up, scoops her into her lap “— is Felina.” 

The little girl lets out a surprised squawk of laughter as Catra maneuvers her into her lap, turning both of them so that they’re facing Adora. She squirms for a moment, giggling, and when Catra asks, “You good?” she just nods her little head. 

Adora watches with an increasingly dopey smile. When the little girl looks up and sees her, though, it’s like the spell is broken — she twists in Catra’s lap, shyly hiding her face in Catra’s shoulder. 

Catra just rolls her eyes and gives the girl a quick pat on the back. Her ponytail is slightly disarrayed, but she doesn’t move to fix it. She looks more relaxed than she has since they first landed on Pantheri.

“Well, when you’re done hiding, I’ll introduce you two,” she says to the kid crowded in her lap. To Adora she says, “How did the meeting go with whatshisface?”

“Chancellor Sabre?”

“Yeah, that di— guy,” says Catra, rolling her eyes. The relationship between her and the Chancellor is… contentious. The Queen had been easy to convince — but they have a monarchy and a parliamentary to appease, and Sabre isn’t exactly an easy man to work with. He is inherently distrustful of Etheria’s youthful delegation, Catra most of all. “Any progress?”

Adora’s gaze darts from Catra down to the child. She isn’t exactly about to create an intergalactic incident by putting government secrets (not to mention Catra’s choice words) into the mouth of a child. 

“I’ll tell you later,” she says, already fantasizing about sinking into bed and curling up beside Catra. Instead, she gives a half hearted wave of the paper in her hand and says, “What’s this?”

Catra smirks. “Do you want to tell her? No?” She says to the child in her lap. When she looks up at Adora again, she explains, _“Someone_ wants to visit Etheria one day, but she doesn’t know the language, so. I’m teaching her our alphabet after her lessons the last few days.” 

The way magicats raise children is almost communal in nature. In some ways, seeing groups of palace children clustered together in the halls or on the grounds reminds her of growing up in the Horde. Unlike the Horde, though, the adults are attentive, welcoming. Felina must have thought nothing of wandering into the library one day and plopping down next to a high ranking intergalactic diplomat. 

Adora looks down at the paper in her hands. It’s mostly just strings of letters, over and over. In one corner, no doubt spelled out by Catra, is the name _“FELINA”_ in blocky letters. It’s strange to look at these earnest attempts and think this is something that Adora was once taught, albeit in a less comfortable environment. Even stranger to look at the wiry child and know that she and Catra had once been that small.

“You did a really good job,” Adora says to the little girl, injecting her voice with maybe more cheer than is necessary, considering Catra looks at her like she’s deranged. Adora pouts at her expression — she thought she was getting better at this. 

“Hey,” Catra says, poking lightly at the little girl’s side. “You can’t go to Etheria and not know Adora. She has, like, statues and sh — stuff.”

“I do not! It’s an ice sculpture!

“Yeah, in a kingdom that never melts,” Catra says with a roll of her eyes. “Hey, Felina. That’s _She-Ra,_ you know.” 

That gets the little girls’ attention. Her ears and tail perk up. After a beat, she unwinds her hands from their vice grip around Catra’s neck and turns in her lap. 

“Really?” She asks, looking up at Adora with mismatched eyes.

And maybe _that’s_ why she thought nothing of sitting down next to a stranger, one that’s considered as much an alien as Adora is. Even here, surrounded by people more like Catra than anyone on Etheria, heterochromia isn’t a common trait. The girl stares up at Adora with mismatched eyes, one emerald green and one dazzling blue. They’re not an exact match, of course — but that in combination with the guarded, precocious stare she aims Adora’s way makes her heart melt. 

That could be their child, one day. Not literally, of course, but Adora finds herself carried away with the thought. She pictures Catra, who spends her days skillfully maneuvering monarchs and politicians in meetings — sometimes to the point of tears — settling down with their child in her lap after a long day, carefully guiding them through the pages of an Etherian picture book. It’s something she hadn’t even known she had wanted before their travels, something she hadn’t even imagined thinking about. 

“She saved our planet, you know,” Catra is saying matter-of-factly, completely oblivious to the fact that Adora is having a full blown epiphany at her side. “And the universe, technically.” 

That gets Adora’s attention. “I had help,” she says, rolling her eyes. 

Catra aims a grin at her over her head. 

The little girl in her lap studies her for a moment, still guarded. Finally she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “But She-Ra has a _sword.”_

Adora grins. 

She raises one hand. She’s getting better at this — her eyes light up celestial blue, but she doesn’t transform. Instead, she closes her eyes and focuses all of that energy into her outstretched hand, carefully held away from the child.

A small gasp sounds into the near silence of the library at the same time Adora feels a familiar weight in her hand. When she opens her eyes her sword is in her hand, its blade gleaming iridescent in the light of the setting sun. 

The girl stares at her with wide eyes. Her mouth is open in shock, and Adora can see the gaps where she is missing her baby teeth. She glances rapidly between Catra and Adora and then says, “I want one!” 

Adora can’t help the huff of laughter she lets out, even as Catra rolls her eyes and mutters something along the lines of, _“Oh great, wait until her parents hear about this.”_

She manages to deter the wide-eyed girl from the sword by turning it into a pen, and before she knows it Felina is clambering into her lap, the sword — pen? — of protection clenched in her chubby hand while Adora directs her into writing more Etherian letters. 

When she eventually looks up to say something to Catra, she sees her limmed in the soft light of the setting sun with an elbow on the table and her head propped up on her chin. She’s smiling softly, and All Adora can do is mirror it. 

* * *

Later, when the two of them have retired for the night to the room they share, Adora says, voice soft, “You like kids, right?”

Catra scoffs. “Kids like _me,”_ she says, voice muffled into the slope of Adora’s shoulder. Her hair is loose now, and it spills in dark waves across the pillow. On instinct, Adora cards her fingers through it. “There’s a difference.” 

“Oh, is there?”

Catra digs her fingers teasingly into Adora’s waist. _“Fine,”_ she says begrudgingly. “Yeah, they’re… alright.”

“Would you—” Adora falters. She doesn’t know why her heart is pounding. She and Catra have talked about almost everything together, everything except this. It feels crazy to ask — they’ve only been together like this for little over a year, but even the mere thought of losing Catra hollows Adora out. There’s so much of the universe to see, and they aren’t exactly planning on settling down anytime soon...but for the first time, Adora thinks that maybe it isn’t selfish to imagine a future for herself. For her and Catra. “Would you… want them? You know, kids?”

Catra goes stiff in her arms. Panic rises in Adora, hot and sudden. Catra sits up slightly, propping herself up on one arm to look down at Adora. She blinks, long and slow. 

“I — I mean, not, you know, _now,_ obviously, I mean — a ship is no place to raise a kid, like we don’t even have a doctor on board, and we’d have to figure out how to — I mean, we have options, but — and I, I mean, I don’t even know how to change a diaper—”

It isn’t until she has stumbled breathlessly over a few dozen excuses that she realizes Catra isn’t looking down at her in horror, but with amusement. 

“Breathe, Adora,” she says, and Adora responds by lazily swatting at her arm. 

She does as told, though — and then asks, only a slight tremor in her voice, “But, I mean… maybe one day? Have you ever thought about it?” 

Catra shrugs, then drops down again. Adora shuffles back slightly so they’re sharing a pillow. It’s a habit at this point; the bed is luxurious, an enormous cushion set low onto the ground, and yet they still gravitate toward each other. They’ll often start the night sprawled out on the wide bed, but invariably they end up curled around one another, clinging to each other like they’re still two little girls in a Horde bunk. 

“I mean, maybe a little bit?” She admits. She has shrunken in on herself, Adora can tell — a familiar habit when she’s uncertain or upset. Still, one hand comes to rest on Adora’s side, casually worrying the fabric of Adora’s sleepshirt between her fingers. “It’s just… We went through a lot as kids. I wouldn’t want to…”

Her voice trails off. Adora knows what she’s thinking. The same thoughts are running through her own head. The Horde was a military unit, not a family. The closest thing they had to a parent had never seen either of them as more than two distinct pieces in a game of emotional manipulation, pawns to be used — sometimes against one another — to cement her own status. 

Adora doesn’t know anything about how to raise a child, doesn’t know anything about _family._

She watches Catra, though, with her ears flat against her head and her mismatched eyes gleaming in the low light, and remembers the gentle way she had guided Felina’s hand in the library, or the way she had bounced Borri on her hip in Xenia. She thinks about all of the times that Catra has been on the verge of physically breaking something (or someone) while interacting with adults. Except for that one instance with Titania, she had never even raised her voice at a child, and Adora remembers the shame in her eyes at the aftermath of that conversation. 

She can’t help but think the same thing each time she witnesses any of those tender interactions: Catra would be a good mother. 

And Adora?

Something twists in her stomach at the thought. Whatever future Adora had seen for herself had not included that, not even in her wildest dreams. If Catra lets her emotions overflow, Adora bottles them up. She stifles her feelings, her desires, her sorrows, all of them somewhere deep where they can’t inconvenience anyone, especially herself. She’s a perfectionist, constantly worried that she is never enough — and when she overcompensates for that, she only hurts those close to her more. She would never want to pass any of that on to a child. Besides, kids don’t even _like_ her, not unless she turns into She-Ra and throws them over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes. 

Adora lets out a sigh. She shifts, slipping her legs to slide between Catra’s in a comforting tangle of limbs. Catra’s tail curls around her lower leg, a welcome weight. 

“I know,” Adora says quietly. “I wouldn’t either. But Catra, we’re not like them…,” she whispers. She reaches out, gently stroking the side of Catra’s face with a gentle hand, sweeping a lock of her shoulder length hair back from her face. “But if you didn’t want — I mean it’s fine —”

When Catra’s hand retreats from her side, Adora freezes for a moment, worried she has said or done the wrong thing — but Catra’s hand comes to cover hers, anchoring it there. She blinks slowly at Adora, studying her, and then says, “Maybe one day.” She shifts closer to Adora and says conspiratorially, “Boy? Girl? Neither? Both?” 

It takes Adora a moment to register what Catra is asking — that they’re even _talking_ about this, even if it is in that vague, lofty world of one day that the two have been talking about their whole lives. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Adora says. “I’d love them either way.” She hesitates for a moment, and then asks, “What… do you think they would look like?

They have a meeting tomorrow tomorrow morning — one of Chancellor Sabre’s dry affairs. It’s hard enough not to fall asleep during his tangents when one is running on more than a few hours of sleep, but Catra and Adora still stay up whispering into the small hours of the morning.

* * *

There’s something about the return to space that Adora always finds comforting. 

Maybe it’s the quiet. Maybe it’s the sea of stars they coast through, still as beautiful to Adora as it had been that first heartbreaking time she had seen them after wrenching Etheria out of Despondos. Maybe it’s because, despite the sense of excitement that comes in visiting each new world, something about the transient nature of their travels makes her feel oddly… lonely. It’s a kind of homecoming, to return to the stars. 

Sometimes they pile into the command room to watch as their host planet grows smaller and smaller, shrinking from a looming giant of now-familiar features to nothing more than a multicolored marble. Others, they just collapse into bed as soon as the ship is out of orbit. There are more comfortable beds in the universe — but these ones are _familiar._

This time, it’s just Adora and Catra. 

The doors to the command center slide open at Adora’s approach with a soft whir. She hesitates in the doorway, unsure what to do, what to say. 

Catra sits curled in the domed window that spans the front of the ship, looking out at the blackness spreading out before them. The view only extends ahead — they can’t see the planet they have left behind, the shrinking view of Pantheri suspended like a tiny marble in the vastness of space. 

She crosses the expanse of the room quietly, coming to stand behind Catra as she does. She hesitates for a moment before raising one hand to settle gently at the low of Catra’s back. 

Catra settles back into the touch. She turns her head slowly, fixing Adora with a soft smile. 

“Hey, Adora,” she says quietly, and all of Adora’s nerves melt away. 

“Hey,” Adora says. Now that Catra has welcomed the touch, she slips her aroums around Catra’s waist, settling her chin on Catra’s elegant shoulder. “How are you doing?”

She can feel the beginning of a soft purr rumbling in Catra’s chest, and it just makes her hug Catra tighter. Acting entirely on impulse, she drops a quick, innocent kiss to Catra’s shoulder. 

“I’m okay,” Catra says simply, lifting her hand to rest against Adora’s. 

Neither of them says anything for a while. Adora basks in the quietness, the sense of closeness with Catra’s warm body pressed against hers. Despite the fact that they’re all constantly tripping over one another in the hallways and kitchen and pounding at the doors of the hygiene chamber, there’s something about being out here in the open expanse of space that feels so… private. Intimate. It’s like she and Catra are the only people in the universe. 

“Are you really okay?” Adora asks quietly. 

“Hmm?”

Adora squeezes tighter against Catra’s waist. “Are you really okay? With us leaving?” 

Catra scoffs. “Why? Miss your chance to get rid of me?”

_“Catra.”_

_“Fine,”_ grumbles Catra. She’s quiet for a moment, the tips of her claws dragging light, soothing circles over the back of Adora’s hand. “I… don’t know. It’s weird. I’m not… I’m not as sad as I thought I would be. It’s okay.” 

Adora goes tense. She blinks for a minute, processing. 

“It’s okay? _Really?”_ She asks. She doesn’t know why the sentiment makes her heart pound in her chest. She feels dizzy with sudden anxiety, skull buzzing with a strange mixture of emotions. 

Part of it is, of course, relief. It’s selfish, of course — but she has spent the whole time in Pantheri dogged by a sick anxiety that maybe Catra would want to stay, would want to explore her potential ancestral planet and try to find some remnants of her family. Adora would begrudgingly understand — she’s felt untethered all of her life, connected to the Horde through only the sense of allegiance bestowed, unwillingly, upon a child soldier. 

She hates to admit that the strange tangle of emotions is equal parts jealousy. They’ve danced atop pools of ice on alien planets, admiring the swirling, sparkling red waters underneath. They’ve convened with rulers of various planets, brought them into an ever expanding alliance to prevent anything like the Horde ever happening again. They’ve reignited magic in numerous planets previously sucked dry by the damaging practices of the First Ones. 

Adora is proud of what she and her friends have accomplished — but she’s no closer to knowing where she came from or if she has a family somewhere. It’s painful to know that Catra has the chance to find answers and is choosing not to take it. It’s even more painful to know that part of the reason why might be _Adora._

“What do you mean it’s ‘ _okay’?”_ Adora asks, grip on Catra loosening. 

A jolt of anxiety is clear in the sudden flattening of Catra’s ears. She releases her hold of Adora and breaks their embrace, twisting so that her back is to the field of stars beyond. 

Adora knows how she must sound, but she pushes breathlessly on. “Catra, what if we don’t get the chance to — I mean, your family could be—”

“Hey, Adora, breathe,” says Catra, eyebrows drawn together in concern. She takes Adora’s hands in hers and draws them into her lap. “We’ve talked about this. However magikats got to Etheria, it would have been a long time ago, back before it was even in Despondos. Whatever happened to my — my parents happened on Etheria. If I don’t know what happened to them by now, I...” She stops for a moment, blinking hard. When she speaks again her voice is strained. “I mean, yeah, maybe I have, like, long lost cousins, fifty times removed, but that’s not — they’re not—”

She cuts herself off. Adora squeezes at Catra’s hand where they’re entangled together in her lap. Catra squeezes hers back in turn. 

“Did you really think I would have wanted to stay there?” Catra’s intent is to tease, but her voice comes out strained.

Adora’s silence speaks for her. It sounds stupid now that Catra has said it out loud, but she can’t help but be anxious about it. Despite the guilty relief she had felt when the doors of the ship had closed behind them, she hasn’t been able to shake the fear that Catra might change her mind, that she might want to go back. 

She still remembers what Catra said to her, curled up together on a makeshift bed in what was once the brig. _“And if you ever want me to go, I’ll go.”_

It should work both ways. If Catra ever wanted to go — _really_ wanted to go — Adora would have to let her, painful as the thought may be. 

“Hey,” Catra says softly. Her brows knit together, eyes soft. She brings a hand to Adora’s face, cupping her cheek in a familiar gesture that Adora instinctively leans into. “Look, whatever happens, wherever we go… I’m staying with you.” Her voice is soft when she says, “You’re my family, Adora.” 

Adora doesn’t realize she’s crying until the pad of Catra’s thumb gently swipes across her cheekbone, wiping away salty tears. She bows her head, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hands, voice breaking on an embarrassed apology. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. And then again, “I’m sorry, I—”

“Adora, it’s—”

“You’re my family too,” Adora says in a rush. It’s true. It has always been true; the Horde wasn’t a family, yet it’s where Adora found hers. “I love you.”

Catra smiles. She gives the hand in hers a quick squeeze, then releases it. 

“I love you too,” she says into the space between the two of them. With gentle hands, she cradles Adora’s face like she’s the most precious thing she’s ever held and pulls her in for a soft kiss. 

Adora would go anywhere those hands would guide her, to the ends of the universe and back. It’s easy to allow herself to be dragged down into a kiss, Catra’s mouth soft and familiar against her own. Her hands drop to the soft slope of Catra’s hips, pulling her closer, and Catra acquiesces, shifting her legs slightly so that Adora can fit between them. She takes comfort in the warmth of Catra’s waist under her hands, her knees knocking into the sides of her own hips, her mouth under her own. 

The kiss remains fairly chaste — they aren’t about to be caught red-handed in the command center (not that it would be the first time for any of them). When Catra finally breaks it, she doesn’t go far. She rests her forehead gently against Adora’s, mouth curved into a soft smile. 

A comfortable silence settles around them. Adora has missed this, the absolute quietness that can only be found in space. She can hear the gentle rumbling of the ship’s engine, the occasional beep from the control panel, and the soft vibration of Catra purring. Adora trails her fingers up and down Catra's sides, unsure if she's trying to soothe Catra or herself with the movement.

“Adora?” Catra asks quietly. 

Adora hums in response. 

“We can go back one day, right?”

Adora shifts back. When she opens her eyes, Catra is looking at her with a vulnerable, hopeful expression, face flushed as though even that one request makes her feel abashed. 

_One day._ There are many _one days_ on their horizon, a universe of possibilities that Adora had never expected constantly unfolding in front of her. One day they will return to Pantheri, and maybe one day they will learn more about Catra and her family. Maybe one day, they will know more about Adora, too. Maybe one day they will return to Pantheri, not just the two of them, but with a child with Catra’s ears and Adora’s eyes, or Catra’s eyes and Adora’s hair, or one that looks nothing like either of them, or more than one that look like both of them. 

Adora leans forward, pressing a soft kiss to Catra’s temple. “Of course,” she murmurs. “One day.”

 **v**.

Every planet is different. 

Their atmospheres are different, some so similar that they require almost no technological or magical intervention for Adora and her companions to freely roam their surface. In others, the atmosphere is dense and foreign, and it requires either a space suit or a resourceful use of magic to even disembark the ship. The terrains are different as well — Adora has now visited planets that are almost entirely submerged in water, their civilizations thriving deep within the depths of blue waters, and then other planets that are completely covered in dusty red dirt. Their flora, their fauna, their peoples, all of them are unique in their own ways, part of an intergalactic patchwork unlike anything Adora could have imagined in the dark halls of the Horde. 

Their magic is different, too. 

When they manage to release the magic of Luminia, bound for centuries by the forgotten machines of the First Ones, it doesn’t overflow the soft earth with greenery the way it had in Etheria. It doesn’t send the dried up riverbanks flowing with healing waters like it had in Aridia, either, or populate the sky with bright, candy colored clouds like it had in Nimbulon. The magic comes in a shower of light, streaming rays that descend from the heavens like falling stars, that buzzes across the land like lightning bugs. It’s beautiful to behold. 

The same orbs of light continue to dapple the air around them, even now, over a day later. Adora watches in awe as one descends toward her, hand outstretched as if waiting for rain. It’s warm where it brushes her hand, sending a familiar thrill through her body that she associates with magic. It reminds her of being on Krytis again, or of Etheria just after defeating the Horde, when everything had been brimming with possibility, with hope, with all of the anticipation brought about by an atmosphere thick with magic. 

They’re at another party. Of course they are — the release of the magic often comes with ceremony, and Adora supposes she can’t fault Glimmer for forcing her to pack formal wear. A bonfire of pink flames curls into the air, and she watches from the sidelines as people dance in rings around it, hands joined. She knows from watching — and from participating, poorly — that at a certain swell, their grasp will break, leaving them free to dance with the person opposite them. The dance will continue, and then they’ll rotate, again and again. 

She watches the dance from her perch on the sidelines as Catra dances. Not within the many concentric rings of adult dancers, but on the sidelines holding hands with a ring of children half her height. How Catra had been dragged off to entertain the children, she doesn’t know — but the laugh that echoes across the clearing at the interaction makes her heart flip in her chest. 

“It’s weird, isn’t it?”

Adora looks up. Glimmer holds out a glass of sweet nectar for her. It’s far more alcoholic than it tastes, something that Adora had learned the hard way over a formal dinner one night. 

“What?” 

Glimmer tilts her head knowingly toward Catra, who is now lifting a child and throwing them in the air with complete disregard for her white suit. She settles down next to Adora on the wide boulder she is using as a bench — there is no man made furniture out here, but this place has long been one of song and dance, and the Luminians have managed to shape it to their will over the years. 

“They just love her,” Glimmer says in surprise. “Catra, of all people. It’s the tail. That’s cheating.” 

“You’re telling me,” says Adora. She runs the fabric of her red dress between her fingers. “Kids hate me.” 

Glimmer snorts into her drink. “You’re like my dad. You try too hard.”

“Have I ever mentioned how much I hate when you and Catra say the same thing?”

When Glimmer laughs, her hair— shorter than Adora has ever seen it— bounces around her face. “Yeah, because it usually means we’re right.” 

“Yeah, you both usually seem to think so,” Adora says

Glimmer knocks into her with her shoulder, and Adora does the same back. They’re a few moments from a full out war that could potentially end with someone sprawled on the blue-green glass below (and Adora isn’t above turning into She-Ra to make sure that isn’t her), but Adora cuts that off by asking, “Have you and Bow thought about… you know… kids?”

“What about them?”

Adora jostles her again. “Oh, come on. Like, _having_ kids,” she asks, eyes still trained on Catra. 

They have been together long enough that Adora no longer feels the same impulse to seek her out in times like these. She no longer feels apprehensive when she sees Catra alone in a crowd, no longer feels the need to rush to her side. It isn’t just the two of them against the universe anymore. She can now watch with affection as Catra charms her way through locals, or as she tosses their children up and down in the air with an open mouthed laugh. 

Glimmer follows her gaze knowingly. “A little bit,” she says, and takes a swig from her petal-like cup. “Bow already has like, twenty nieces and nephews and cousins and such. I don’t think he would want more than like. One?”

“And you?”

“I hate kids,” Glimmer says bluntly. “But… I don’t know. It was lonely, being an only child. And it’s hard to think about doing it, you know… without my mom around.” Glimmer falls quiet. Adora places her hand on hers and squeezes. Years have passed — the better part of a decade — and yet she knows the pain will never really go away. Glimmer squeezes her hand back and then hedges, “Maybe two would be nice?”

Adora hums and takes a sip of her drink. It’s an ill-fated decision, as two seconds later Glimmer says, without preamble, “You would be a good mom.” 

It’s a blessing that Adora had worn the red dress tonight, and not her white jumpsuit. In an elegant move completely unbefitting for either the legendary warrior She-Ra or an Etherian High Counselor, nectar sprays from her mouth when she snorts in shock. It burns in her nostrils. She mostly manages to avoid her or Glimmer’s lap, but a few droplets of darkened red fabric stare up at her in shame.

 _“Me?”_ She asks in shock and mortification. “Did you miss the point where I said they _hate_ me?”

Glimmer rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but it’s different when they’re your own! At least, that’s what my mom always said, even though she always chewed my head off.” Her tone is more affectionate than anything. “But, you know. You’re loyal, and protective, and caring… You have way more patience than I do, that’s for sure.”

“Thanks,” Adora says, hoping the soft rain of magic lights is dim enough that it doesn’t betray the blush coloring her cheeks. She watches them for a moment, suddenly nostalgic for the fireflies that light up the summers in Bright Moon. “We’ve talked about it. I — I think we want that? At least one. It’s hard to think about, sometimes. You know how Catra and I grew up. I… we would never want to put anyone else through what we went through.” 

Now it’s Glimmer’s turn to give Adora’s hand a slight squeeze. She inclines her head to Catra, still being dragged around by the children in a circle of joined hands meant to mimic the Luminian chain dances. Somehow, Catra still manages to make the movement look graceful. 

“I don’t think you ever would,” Glimmer says quietly. 

Adora drums her fingers against her cup in thought. She remembers the shock she had felt the first time she held a baby in Plumeria all those years ago, consumed by fear that she might drop it. Years later, she had held a baby at a party and the sense of panic had been just as overwhelming. Childhood had always been a foreign realm to her, one filled by inhabitants that she couldn’t even begin to relate to. She had been forced to grow up far too quickly, and had felt that disconnect every single time she spoke with a child since. She had always wondered if that was something all adults felt, or if it was simply something that was missing from her. 

She and Catra had lived through the same upbringing, and yet Catra makes it look so easy. All Adora could do was follow her lead, awkward as she was, and treat them with the kind of kindness and compassion that neither of them had been afforded as children. Maybe that’s enough. 

Across the grounds, a child pushes Catra into the middle of the circle and they dance around her like she is the bonfire, the beacon. Orbs of soft light fall in the space around her, falling like snow against her dark hair, her pristine white suit. When a child holds out a chubby hand for her she takes it, and Adora realizes as she watches that the sight no longer makes her jealous or apprehensive. 

She’s so caught in soft reverie that all she can do is offer a dopey smile when Catra meets her gaze across the grounds. Catra winks — mischievous, flirty — and then drops into a crouch to speak to the children. 

They all turn and look at Adora. 

“Uh-oh.” 

Glimmer frowns. “What?”

Adora holds out her drink. “Hold this—”

“Wha—”

She can hear Catra’s cackling when the horde of children turn and charge, their giggles filling the air. 

_“For the Honor—”_

“— Stars, you two, really—”

_“— of Grayskull!”_

_**\+ i** _

Looking at the baby squirming on the bed, a familiar sense of fondness rushes over Adora. 

It’s a different kind of love, unlike anything Adora has felt before. She loves her friends, she loves Catra. But as she pinches the little foot in her hand and is rewarded by a gurgle she chooses to interpret as a giggle, she can’t help but think that _this_ was what she was protecting when she saved all of Etheria. A future so bright she couldn’t have imagined anything like it back in the Fright Zone, something she once thought she would never have. 

Finn’s little hand flails, waving wildly before grabbing at her finger. Their blue eyes stare up at Adora, and they look so much like Catra that it nearly knocks Adora’s breath out of her chest. She wonders if this is what she looked like once — this small and vulnerable, far too precious for the world around her.

It’s a completely different world than the world they had brought Finn into. Kinder, freer, a place where they can shower a child in the kind of love neither of them had ever received.

With gentle fingers, Adora tickles Finn’s stomach and the baby coos happily. Adora melts at the sound. She runs the tips of her fingers over the baby’s soft belly, lightly scratching through the fine fur there — and Finn purrs, the sound of it vibrating through their little body. 

Adora can’t help it. She feels so warm, so suffused with an incandescent happiness too big for her body. She knows she shouldn’t — but a small voice in the back of her mind whispers, _Maybe this time…._

She brushes her hand back over Finn’s forehead, gently shielding their eyes the way she does when they play peekaboo, and whispers in a baby-voice unbefitting of the savior of Etheria, _“For the Honor of Grayskull.”_

Soft light bathes the bedroom. That strange, soaring sensation she feels whenever she summons She-Ra washes over her. She feels strong, confident. She can do this. 

She opens her eyes — blue, bright, divine, the same shade as Finn’s — and her heart swells to see her child staring up at her. 

Finn bursts into tears. 

“Oh, no,” says She-Ra. And then, again, “Oh, no, oh, no, oh, _shit…”_

Picking up Finn and patting at their back does nothing to soothe the baby. If anything, it makes Finn cry harder, heart-wrenching cries of anguish that pound in She-Ra’s ears. They look even smaller like this, cradled in She-Ra’s strong arms and larger than life hands. 

She bounces the baby carefully. This body was designed to be a weapon, the hands created to brandish swords and break chains — but they are capable of tenderness, too. It’s a tenderness that had to be taught, a slow discovery that even though everything else is so fragile when she’s She-Ra, she can still take those things in her hands if she handles them with care. She holds the screaming baby with the gentle hands of a mother. 

Still, it doesn’t help. Finn is still wailing when the door to their suite swings open. 

“Adora? Is everything…” 

Catra’s hair is pulled up and out of her face. Years of teasing Adora about impending tension baldness for her ponytail had fallen by the wayside with the arrival of a baby that liked nothing more than yanking at hair. In her hands is a communication tablet. She’s been holed up in the library all day, poring over correspondences with colleagues from other worlds. Interplanetary travel will be off the table for a few years, but there’s still plenty of work to be done. She looks tired. She looks beautiful. 

The second she hears the screaming, her brow furrows in concern — protective, always so protective of her little family. It makes She-Ra feel worse to think _she_ is the one Finn needs protecting from. 

When she sees She-Ra standing in the center of the room trying to calm down a screaming baby, she lets out a dramatic sigh. With a roll of her eyes, she crosses the room. “This again?” she asks without bite. Before She-Ra can get a word in, she fits her hands around the squirming baby and whisks them away. 

The effect is immediate. Finn gives a few more mewls as Catra carefully positions them in her arms, but soon they fall quiet. Those beautiful blue eyes stare up at Catra, enraptured. A slow grin spreads across Catra’s face. 

“Yes, _this again,”_ She-Ra snaps. She watches in bare-faced envy, folding her arms across her chest petulantly. She’s too worked up to shrink back down into Adora. She paces instead. In this form, she could probably wear a hole into the carpet doing so. “I just don’t understand!”

Catra is either ignorant or unsympathetic to She-Ra’s plight. Probably the latter. She bounces the baby in her arms, Finn’s tiny hand held in her larger one. “Did the big, mean mom scare you?” Catra coos, voice low in the closest approximation she ever gets to baby talk. “Did she?”

 _“Catra!”_ wails She-Ra, as if all of the great betrayals, all of the underhanded fights, all of the grief Catra caused her in their youth pale in comparison to this one slight. 

“What?” Asks Catra, still more focused on the baby than on her wife’s impending crisis. She brings their chubby hand to her mouth for a soft kiss. When she pretends to bite at one of Finn’s tiny knuckles, Finn laughs. _Laughs._ She-Ra has never been more jealous in her life. That should be _her_ pretending to eat the baby. “I’m not the one who made the baby cry.” 

She-Ra flops backwards onto their plush bed, flings her arm out to find an ornamental pillow she can suffocate her scream in.

Catra swats at one of She-Ra’s long legs with her tail, and says, only half paying attention, “Don’t break the bed.” 

There is a rather immature response waiting on the tip of She-Ra’s tongue, but she doesn’t go for the low hanging fruit. Instead, she groans harder into the pillow. Vision blocked like this, it only serves to amplify her awareness of Finn’s soft coos. They’re so _cute._

What does it take to make She-Ra, an eight foot tall warrior maiden and savior of the known universe, cry? 

Not much. 

“They _hate_ me,” she says, her voice muffled through the pillow. 

“You _are_ kinda scary like this,” says Catra unhelpfully. 

She-Ra sits up and fixes Catra with a glare. It’s the kind that can make warlords tremble and bend sovereigns to her will. The effect is minimized by the fact that she is sitting on one of Bright Moon’s absolute confections of a bed and strangling a pink pillow as if she has a vendetta against it. She-Ra’s annoyed expression holds for a moment, then falls. Her lip trembles. 

“Adora…” says Catra, the tone of her voice equal parts exasperation and concern. 

That does it. The pillow bursts, drowning the room in a rain of downy feathers that will have Glimmer making snide remarks in the morning. Finn’s laughter is the only thing that keeps She-Ra from going absolutely over the edge.

With a sigh, Catra shifts Finn onto her hip and holds one hand out for She-Ra. She takes it, enveloping Catra’s hand in her much larger one. 

She-Ra sniffles. 

“Great,” says Catra, not unkindly. Her thumb runs small circles over the back of She-Ra’s hand. “Now I've got _two_ crying babies to take care of.”

“It's not funny, Catra,” says She-Ra again, aiming for the usual authoritative tone she associates with this form and achieving petulant instead. She looks up at Finn, who is too engrossed in playing with Catra’s ponytail to focus on the _giant monster_ on the bed, eager hands grabbing for it with every turn of Catra’s head.

"It's a little funny."

 _“Catra,”_ says She-Ra again, pressing her stupid, glowing eyes together. 

“What? Not everyone loves She-Ra, big deal. I wasn’t exactly a fan at first.” 

She-Ra starts to mutter a halfhearted, _“That’s not what you said last—”_ but she drops it at the challenging eyebrow Catra arches at her. She lets out a sigh instead. 

That’s the problem, isn’t it?

It had taken rescuing her from an intergalactic dictator for Catra to come around to She-Ra, and three long years of fighting before that. Somehow, the last eight months have seemed even longer than that. She can’t transform into She-Ra without Finn immediately bursting into tears. Catra says the same thing each time, alternating between teasing and tenderness as she reminds Adora that it might take _time_ — but Adora doesn’t want to wait. 

“Finn _needs_ to get used to her, Catra,” She-Ra says. She drops Catra’s hand and stands, resuming her restless pacing across the room. Her fists clench and unclench as she moves through the room, so distracted she keeps nearly running into the dripping chandeliers and floating bowls. “I can’t — what if we’re in a situation where I need to protect them, and I can’t, because they’re too scared of her? And I know it won’t be for a while, but one day we’ll be back to Diplomatic missions! We can’t just do those without She-Ra! And she’s…”

_She’s a part of me._

She had spent so much time separating the two, compartmentalizing the version of her that is _Adora_ and the version that is _She-Ra._ At this point, over a decade spent with her alter-ego, she knows they’re the same. She’s so intertwined with She-Ra, she can no longer fathom the idea of losing her. She’s a part of Adora now, ingrained into her sense of being. The rejection from her own child, from someone she loves more than life itself, _hurts._

“Hey,” says Catra, voice soft. 

She-Ra glances back at her. One of her wife’s arms is wrapped around Finn’s small form, holding the baby with the easy, practiced grip of a mother. Her thumb sweeps unconsciously against their chubby thigh, a soothing gesture. 

She’s so good at this. Adora has seen her take down rogue robots and enormous monsters with her bare hands, has seen her go head to head in debate with diplomats in alien courts and come out on top, has seen the way she snaps at friends and strangers alike when her short fuse has been burning too long, but she can be so _gentle._

It’s a side of hers that had, for so long, been uniquely Adora’s. And then slowly it had belonged to friends, and to children, and to the makeshift family they had made for themselves. Now it belongs to Finn, too. Even when Catra’s eye is twitching from lack of sleep and the baby won’t stop screaming and it’s two in the morning and even Adora is half ready to jump into the waterfall streaming down the side of the castle, Catra’s hands and words are guided by a sense of devoted patience. She cares for their child the same way Adora does, pouring enough love and affection into their upbringing to make up for all of the things that neither of them had ever had. 

It makes She-Ra — Adora — both — feel guilty. And _stupid,_ for getting so worked up over something like this. 

“Hey,” says Catra again, stepping closer. She can’t quite reach She-Ra’s shoulder, so she settles a hand against her hip instead. “Adora, you have to give them time. Finn doesn’t _know_ She-Ra, not yet, and the switch _is_ probably kinda weird.” 

“But what—”

“Look, Adora,” Catra bowls over her, tone gentle yet still leaving little room for argument. “Not everyone needs an eight foot tall glowing sword lady to like, save the universe or protect them from monsters, or argue with bureaucrats. Sometimes they don’t need She-Ra, they just…” her hand slips from She-Ra’s side to her arm, tracing down the expanse of firm muscle to reach her hand. She twines their fingers together loosely and says, “...need Adora. Need Mom.” 

Finn sneaks a look at her with eyes as blue as the early evening sky just outside the window. As soon as they see She-Ra looking back, the baby buries their face in Catra’s neck — but after a moment they tilt their head again, peaking hesitantly up at her. 

That one, tentative glance is enough to soothe the tension from her body. She-Ra deflates. Finn blinks owlishly, and by the time their eyes open again it’s just Adora standing in front of them and Catra. 

The change is immediate. The baby flops forward, arms outstretched. Adora laughs, dropping Catra’s hand so that the baby can be offloaded into Adora’s open arms. Finn’s weight is familiar in her arms, growing heavier every day. It’s bittersweet — she’s excited to see her baby grow, while also sad to know that each passing month will change them forever. 

“Well, hello there,” she says softly. The baby gurgles up at her, fixing Adora with that same entranced stare they had given Catra earlier. Their hands curl into tiny fists against her collarbone, and Adora laughs as she extracts a lock of golden hair from around their chubby fingers, throwing it back over her shoulder before Finn can grab for more. She gently touches their foreheads together, Finn’s soft and tender against her own. “I love you,” she whispers.

Finn giggles. Adora assumes the feeling is mutual. 

“And I love you,” she says, pulling back to look at Catra, just over the baby’s head. Her mouth is quirked in a small, fond smile as she watches the two of them and her hand is still anchored against the soft expanse of Finn’s back. Adora shifts the baby onto one hip and holds her hand out for Catra to take. 

Catra does so, tangling her slim fingers with Adora’s. She raises their joined hands together, and presses a soft kiss to the flat of Adora’s knuckles. “I love you too,” she murmurs, lips brushing over Adora’s skin as she speaks. 

It sends a shiver down Adora’s spine. She draws their hands toward Catra’s jaw, anchoring her in place. The reduced height difference in these forms gives Adora the chance to lean down, just slightly, and press their lips together for a light kiss. 

Catra’s lips are warm and soft under hers, and Adora would gladly sink into the sweet moment of the kiss, if not for the tiny hands tangling in her hair. A light yank draws her attention, and she breaks the kiss with a roll of her eyes.

“There’s no way that tastes good,” Adora says to Finn, pulling her hand loose from Catra’s so that she can better protect her hair from the infant intent on eating it. She bounces Finn distractedly, hoping that will be enough to take their attention off of pulling her hair from her head. 

Catra takes pity on her. Using her now free hand, she reaches around to brush Adora’s hair back, pulling it over her shoulders so that it can slip down between her shoulder blades, the occasional patch damp from the onslaught. Once the rescue attempt is complete, she slips her hand to rest on the back of Adora’s neck. 

“I do too, by the way.” 

Adora looks up from Finn’s smiling face to raise an eyebrow at Catra. 

“Need you,” she says, the tips of her claws tracing lightly over the back of Adora’s neck. “Not She-Ra, just… you. Adora.” 

It makes Adora’s heart full. There’s a familiar, comforting rumble against her chest, and when she looks down to see Finn nestled against her collarbone, their small form vibrates with a soft purr. 

She bounces the baby carefully, content to feel that familiar, tiny rumble against her own chest. She sits down on the bed with far less drama than she had last time, and Catra follows suit, pressing against her with her head resting against Catra’s shoulder. Usually, she would use these moments of solace to set the baby in the bassinet so the two of them could carefully tip-toe off to go focus on some of their own responsibilities — or to _sleep._ Quiet time is a precious commodity these days. Parenting has been one of the hardest things Adora has ever done.

Instead, she tucks her head against Catra’s, relishing in the ever constant warmth of her wife at her side. Catra slips an arm around Adora’s waist, eyes turned down to watch as Finn’s eyes drift shut, as their chest rises and falls with soft snores. 

The two of them sit together like that for a while, heads bent together, their entire universe held in Adora’s arms. 


End file.
